Of late, 10+2 schools have been mushrooming in Kathmandu. The operators of the schools and colleges here spend a large amount of money on advertisements and glamorous publicity. They list many attractive features in their brochures with an eye on drawing the attention of prospective students but which do not exist in reality. Such schools and colleges are just glamorous rather than a genuine place for acquiring quality education. They erect hoarding boards saying “100 percent successful results”. There are many higher secondary schools and colleges which do not hesitate to announce their results in public even if they have hardly 10 students. But they don’t mention the number of students. If there are only three participants in a competition, should the one who finishes third be proud?

Many owners and founders of such schools and colleges appoint only their acquaintances, relatives and those who come from different referees. If they have to appoint only their near or dear ones, why don’t they name their institutions after their family? They issue vacancy notices through different means of communication. Candidates submit their CVs and documents and walk to the interview with the hope of grabbing the opportunity. But all their hopes are dashed by the so-called institutions. The time spent on interviews and the money spent in photocopying and scanning documents can be forgotten over time, but the hopes dashed and sentiments hurt can neither be compensated nor eased. Such people are virtually corrupt, aren’t they?

Not only that, in case an applicant is invited to attend an interview, he or she has to tell them how many students they can bring. Moreover, the applicants are asked to buy shares in the institution. I don’t think all the jobseekers are rich enough to buy shares. If they were rich enough, they would not be running after such fake vacancy announcements. Summing up, the practice of blowing one’s own trumpet by boasting to be best academic institution, the best centre for excellence, a highly accredited institution and so on needs to be stopped. Instead of renovating their physical structures each year, I urge these institutions to change their attitude and review their whole academic progress, the teaching technology and the nepotism and favouritism which hinder academic excellence.