Source of Intellectual Corruption

Education plays a pivotal role in the development of a country. The government must pay a great deal of attention to the advancement of an educational sector to ensure its progress. Is the government in Nepal acting with this fact in mind? Did past governments make an adequate attempt to expand the educational sector? I will attempt to answer these questions, keeping in mind elements that contribute to the whole attempt to develop the educational sector; for example how lecturers are appointed and promoted, their methods of teaching, and the way they carry out their other duties. If the answer to the above questions is not in the affirmative, it will serve as a clear sign of the existence of what may be called "intellectual corruption".

Corruption is a term applied to a kind of behavior that is socially harmful and therefore socially unacceptable. I have used the term "corruption" in this sense. By the term "intellectual corruption" I mean the behavior shown by intellectuals that impedes "intellectual progress".

If we are to think without question that lecturers are appointed and promoted through a competition, we may think that there is nothing wrong with the process involved in the appointment and the promotion of lecturers. To understand that there is something wrong with that process, we must go beyond this rather misleading assumption, and examine what lies behind this contest. The kind of competition through which lecturers are appointed and promoted is not a competition proper. This may perhaps be rightly described as "the so-called competition". In reality, it is no more than a cover used for concealing the impartial decisions made without taking into account the competitive strength of the applicants.

Professors at a university have a responsibility not only to teach knowledge already produced but also to produce new knowledge. Those professors who are not capable of producing new knowledge occupy the challenging and sensitive position of a...