ALEX HAMILTON

India is renascent and the coming economic superpower, churning out unrivalled university graduates and is already at the cutting-edge of technology. Or is it? What is clearly true is that each year India produces several thousand graduates of the highest quality: you may have met some as many are in great demand in Britain and the west.

But what of those who are not of this brilliant veneer?

When I first saw my college in Orissa in eastern India, I was impressed. Unlike many an establishment in the UK, a clear effort and investment had been made in creating interesting and beautiful buildings; and all surrounded by acres of manicured, formal gardens.

I found one building particularly attractive: the canteen in the style of a Buddhist temple. But when I went inside to try the fare, I was disappointed: the food was insipid, the interior dreary and the acoustics such that conversation was drowned out by a called order or moving dishes. One of the lecturers said to me: "This is your new college: all facade and no substance."

Facade is certainly important. When the Minister of Labour of the central government came visiting (an old pal of the college chairman) some embarrassing staff - the 10-year-old children who couldn't go to school because they were working all day maintaining the gardens - were removed for the day. Child labour is, of course, illegal, but mere illegality didn't seem to be a big problem.

There has been a massive growth in private colleges in India in the past decade. Education - especially in engineering - is seen as the route to the promised land. And, dotted about in the ocean of degrading poverty that is still the lot of at least one-third of the Indian population, there are more than enough moneyed, new-middle-class people who want to see their kids get a degree. The colleges have become a printing press for money, but, of course, no-one wants to spend a few thousand dollars and get nothing at the end of the day: "I've paid for a degree: a degree is what I want."

Typically, the colleges provide the education while an external university provides the actual degree. Thirty per cent of the final marks are assigned internally, and this led to a unique experience in my 30-year career in education: watching a colleague choosing numbers at random between 60% and 90%. No assessment was actually carried out.

Some departments ran what the students referred to as an "autograph" system: the lecturers actually prepared an exam paper, to be shown to the university if necessary, but the students gained their marks - usually a minimum of 70% - if they turned up and signed their names.

I was told that if genuine assessment was made, leading to students failing college exams, the consequences would be dire: parents would complain and stop paying fees and the students would riot. Students rioting and smashing equipment is not uncommon in Indian colleges.

I decided I had to say something. I went to the college chairman and suggested the cheating was undermining efforts to raise standards at the college. With great charm and apparent wisdom, he agreed with me: it would never happen again.

Although some lecturers told me the chairman was simply posturing, accompanied by a senior professor, I went round all the classes advising that the days of fake marks were over. I prepared an elaborate set of internal assessment devices that were duly and diligently used by the lecturers. Some students clearly didn't take my warnings seriously and absenteeism remained at its normal high level. A fair number of students received fail marks.

But what marks were actually sent off to the university by the college? What I do know is that, when the university published the final results, students who had been given 5/30 somehow or other got 20/30.

The colleges are responsible for 30% internal assessment but the remaining 70% is controlled by the external university. However, in Orissa, the "external university" exists in name more than reality and consisted only of a vice-chancellor and a few office staff. Crucially, the externally supervised end-of-semester exams were invigilated by a mixture of college staff and colleagues from other colleges and all of the colleges were in the same boat: they sank or swam together.

The Indian college system is a huge cesspit: bribery is the norm.

Maybe it doesn't really matter. After all, the system keeps working. Although the students get a degree that is of little academic value, they still get jobs. Unlike UK colleges, the Indian colleges have a large placement department. After all, that is why the parents have paid their money. And so when the representatives of the companies come round the colleges, a nice fee/bribe is paid by the colleges and everyone more or less gets a job.

The great strides made despite this Indian veneer cannot be denied and India's labour costs continue to undercut most of the non-Chinese competition. But the veneer must not be allowed to hide the endemic poverty; and the corruption and shallowness of much of Indian education must be recognised, challenged and destroyed.

Alex Hamilton spent a year as director of training and professor of English in an engineering college in eastern India.