Letters: Falling standards

With regard to the recruitment for research positions in Grade B for the Department of Economic and Policy Research, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) website says the following, among other things, under "job profile": "Specific areas of our research interest include monetary economics, e-banking and financial institutions, central banking, corporate finance, financial markets, financial regulation, financial stability, household finance, liquidity, payment systems and related areas of macro finance such as real?financial sector linkages and international economics and finance." There is no mention of agricultural or rural economics.

In the past, the RBI's research contribution, particularly in the field of agricultural credit, was appreciated by national and international scholars. Does the job profile in question indicate a waning of interest in the area? Agricultural credit occupied an important place in the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934 and the Agricultural Credit Department was one of the earliest departments to be established in the RBI.

The RBI website also states that candidates would be selected on the basis of interview only. Probably, the minimum qualification of PhD is assumed to be adequate to know the academic standing of a candidate. But the standard of doctoral dissertation is not the same across universities. As the standard of an MA degree - which was earlier the minimum qualification - differs across universities, in the past the RBI had followed the wise policy of conducting a written test to select candidates for interview. This provided a level playing field.

I remember the recruitment advertisement of a multinational company a few years ago. The footnote of the advertisement stated that graduates of universities in certain specified regions of the country need not apply as these institutions were perceived to have low academic standards and degrees could allegedly be purchased by bribing examiners. I do not know whether the standards of such universities have improved.

A Seshan Mumbai

Letters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to:
The Editor, Business Standard
Nehru House, 4 Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg
New Delhi 110 002
Fax: (011) 23720201
E-mail: letters@bsmail.in
All letters must have a postal address and telephone number