At the India AI Impact Summit 2026 last week, Galgotias University provided a shameful sideshow that gravely undermined India’s attempt to project itself as a serious player in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) with credible educational standards.
A communications teacher from this private university, which appears to enjoy considerable government patronage, claimed in an interview to Doordarshan that Orion, a robotic dog, had been developed by its centre of excellence. In reality, it was a commercially available Chinese-made robot. Social media erupted with viral posts and memes ridiculing the claim. The embarrassment was so acute that the University was swiftly asked to vacate its spacious pavilion at the Summit.
When a university, at a national showcase event, blurs the line between assembly, demonstration and original research, it exposes a deeper malaise. The incident sparked a backlash and a much-needed debate about the quality of Indian education. False and inflated claims, many argued, are emblematic of a larger crisis in our education system that stretches from foundational schooling to elite institutions and private universities.
At one end, primary schools are being closed down and dropout rates are rising. At the other, elite institutions and mushrooming private universities appear to be gaming everything, from patent filings and peer-reviewed research to placements, in order to secure government benefits. Consider a few reports from February alone that expose the spectrum of the problem.
The University Grants Commission (UGC) has again identified 32 fake universities operating across 12 states. More shocking than the list itself is the fact that the number has jumped from 20 to 32 in just two years. Instead of a crackdown and exemplary punishment—particularly when 12 of these institutions operate in the national capital—UGC has merely advised parents and students to exercise caution.
If this concerns higher education, the situation appears no better at the foundational level. The Uttar Pradesh (UP) police recently blew the lid off a major scandal in which a truckload of textbooks printed for free distribution under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) for the 2026–27 academic session were being sold as scrap at ₹4/kg instead of being delivered to students. (Free textbooks scam: Bahraich dist admn cracks whip, over half-a-dozen officials hauled up). An inquiry has been ordered; but few would be surprised if such loot is more widespread. UP and Madhya Pradesh have recorded the highest primary-school closures in the country.
Among the most credible voices consistently documenting the decline in education is Maheshwer Peri, founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Careers360 (Pathfinder Publishing Pvt Ltd). Through data-driven analyses, based on thousands of RTI (right to information) filings, he has exposed disturbing trends in school enrolments, lack of infrastructure, faculty quality, placements and regulatory compliance.
On 19th February, in the aftermath of Galgotias University’s claim, he posted a detailed thread on X exposing what he described as ‘academic fraud’ built into our education system and ‘sanctioned by the powers that be’. His posts span the entire spectrum--from elite institutions to primary education.
Fudging Research & Patents
The starting point, he argues, is an incentive structure in which business benefits are tied to rankings. These benefits include: autonomy, graded autonomy, permission to open new campuses, launch fresh courses and offer online degrees. The result is relentless gaming of metrics. Here are some numbers.
Four private universities, for instance, claim to have conducted more research and filed more patents than all the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) combined. Five private universities boast research scores of 90+, while the elite Indian Institute of Science (IISc) scores 51.9; indeed, 70 universities rank above IISc. Data of this nature, by itself, ought to have triggered investigation.
In September 2025 (https://x.com/maheshperi/status/1966715267125297363), Mr Peri posted data to show that even the premier IITs under-report admissions to inflate placement percentages and faculty-student ratios. Against a sanctioned intake of 1,001 seats, combined IIT admissions were shown as only 710 (70.9%) for placement calculations, he says.
The gaming of education metrics has not gone unnoticed. Mr Peri cites reports ranging from Chemistry World (October 2024) on the gaming of ranking, to Nature (August 2025) on the surge in research retractions needing reform, to The Print (September 2024) on scientists gaming peer review and a January 2026 Times of India report headlined: “Universities rush to file patents for rankings, few acquire commercial value”.
Internship Fraud
At the middle tier of technical education, pressure to secure internships has spawned a shady market in fake certificates (https://x.com/maheshperi/status/2022146171612090813). Companies have sprung up in Noida solely to issue internship certificates for a price.
The roots of this fraud lie in regulatory design. The all-India council for technical education (AICTE), which is the statutory regulator for technical education, mandates internships after every alternate semester but does not require institutions to arrange them. With 15 lakh–20 lakh students entering technical education annually, a ready market for fabricated credentials was inevitable.
If higher education has been captured by rankings-chasing and revenue-maximising incentives that reward manipulation over quality, foundational education reveals a different, but equally troubling, decline.
Primary Education: Demographic Nightmare
Launched in 2000, the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan promised to address India’s chronic literacy deficit and lack of basic education. It soon claimed 98% school enrolment. Two decades later, the picture is vastly different. Primary schools are closing; student enrolment has fallen; and, as the Uttar Pradesh episode or the scholarship scam in MP reveal, funds allocated for education of low-income groups are vulnerable to diversion.
Drawing on parliamentary data, Mr Peri notes, in a detailed post on X, that 93,000 government schools (many were rural primary schools) have shut down over the past decade. School enrolment has dropped by 2.41 crore. While a 32% increase in private schools has partially offset the 7% drop in government schools, the gap exposes deep stress in foundational literacy, especially when India’s overall population has increased at the same time. The Annual Survey of Education Report (ASER) 2024 also shows that fewer than half of class-5 students can read a class-2 text. “Forget demographic dividend,” Mr Peri warns. “We will soon face a demographic nightmare.”
Worryingly, the distortion is not confined to a few corners of the education system. In 2025 and early-2026, medical colleges were found inflating faculty strength ahead of inspections; law schools have faced scrutiny over exaggerated placement disclosures; and several universities quietly withdrew research papers following complaints about plagiarism and data-fabrication. Across disciplines -- medicine, law, management and the sciences – there is a familiar pattern of check-list compliance, gaming the system or outright fraud.
When rankings, patents and enrolment numbers to obtain government benefits become ends in themselves, products of such a system will lead to compromised competence in laboratories, courtrooms, hospitals and boardrooms. That is not the route to Viksit Bharat.
I also forgot to mention that going forward we can expect a deluge of courses that private universities will offer with the tag "AI". BBA in AI, BCom with AI, MBA with AI etc. Gullible students will fall prey to this. There are private universities in India that offer a degree in aeronautical engineering without any lab facilities. So, what eventually matters is how a HEI masters its sales and marketing abilities to hoodwink people and get away with it! I do hope that ML, known for its investigative journalism, will open the lid on online MBA courses.
It is indeed a sad state of affairs. I really wonder what is the contribution made by Mr Pradhan in this context to address the malaise that has crept into the system. I recall writing a piece on malpractices in business education almost a decade ago. The situation has turned even more egregious now. College campuses are becoming Universities and autonomy is granted without a second thought. We need to check the statistic to find out how many HE institutions in India have political affiliations or are managed by benamis who act at the behest of politicians. It is not difficult to understand how politicians can manage this. They have loads of unaccounted for money and they also have easy access to land for building sprawling campuses. The present system glorifies accreditations like NAAC, NBA etc without looking into the specifics. A well know business school in Karnataka (that is affiliated to a corporate group) acquired NBA accreditation. But do you know that they were short staffed due to the lack of willingness of people to settle in an area that is somewhat underdeveloped. Every student was assured of good marks in the examination and examiners were told not to give anyone marks below 70. Then these same institutions complain that placements are not forthcoming. The entire process of getting a NBA accreditation has become a joke - I don't know who is responsible for triggering this trend. This serves little purpose to a student who pays lakhs to enrol in a business education course. Most institutes that have obtained NBA accreditation have successfully manipulated the system by fabricating documents and course attainment rates. Unfortunately, the entire process has turned out to be a form filling exercise. The less said about research the better. Original research flew out of the window once generative AI began spreading its wings. Ask teaching fraternity if they use AI - most of them will squirm and refuse to admit but they all know what they do behind closed doors in their cubicles. Churn out research papers after papers and get them published in indexed journals...The entire scenario is dampening and doesn't augur well for the future. Thanks to ML for being bold enough to highlight these issues.
If we discontinue credentialism then the world would be a better place. A pani-puri seller tends to be far more astute and street-smart than an IIM grad. Anyone with common sense can distinguish between sense and nonsense. Credentialism is a byproduct of colonial education system that is far too entrenched into the Indian psyche and culture. A shame, really. We need to go back to home-schooling and Gurukulam system. After all, many (and it's not an exaggeration to say that nearly a vast majority, perhaps 90%) of the great figures on this planet were all home-schooled. Leonardo Da Vinci and Aryabhata must be laughing at us. Do away with credentialism and just learn by doing.
Unfortunately media also plays a role in boosting the credentials of poor quality institutions at primary, secondary and tertiary levels. Publishing annual ranking of institutions using dodgy criteria and holding glittering award ceremonies to honour the top rankers in each category help promote such dubious ventures. Often the rankings are based on who pays for them.
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