MYSORE: Proliferation of dubious universities claiming to have tie-up with U.S. varsities and attracting a large number of Indian students is old hat.

For, there are foreign universities that award post-doctoral degrees for a consideration and at least two professors from the University of Mysore have "bought" their post-doctoral degrees paying $500 each.

This startling disclosure was made by Vice-Chancellor of the University of Mysore J. Shashidhar Prasad at a press conference here on Sunday.

Though he refused to disclose the names, Prof. Shashidhar Prasad said one faculty member had received it for his "contribution" to science while another had got it in the field of literature.

"You can find it out for yourself if you are interested," he quipped.

Fanciful degrees

They write their fanciful degrees after their names, but there was nothing more to it, said Prof. Shashidhar Prasad and denied that it would help them secure promotions or additional increments.

"Both of them were professors by the time they bought their post-doctoral degree from fancy sounding university names," he said.

The issue of dubious university came up in the context of the State Government's refusal to grant permission to the University of Mysore to start its distance education programme, which has now been put on hold.

The Vice-Chancellor referred to the Karnataka State Open University (KSOU), which had objected to Mysore University's decision to start distance education course, and said efforts should be made to thwart bogus U.S. universities from setting up shop in India. Instead, they were targeting the University of Mysore.

He referred to a course offered by a private institute claiming to have affiliation to Adam Smith University in the U.S.

"But a Google search on the Internet revealed that this university is recognised only in Liberia and not in the U.S. or Europe. But our students will go for it given its fancy sounding name and lose their money," Prof. Shashidhar Prasad said, lamenting the lack of mechanism to curb the proliferation of private universities.

Dubious universities

There were nearly 600 dubious universities in India, and the U.S. was reckoned to have at least 4,000 of them. Chhattisgarh alone had nearly 110 such universities, Prof. Shashidhar Prasad said.

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