Now not only can one buy a degree from the market with the official stamp of the University of Mumbai, the more scrupulous of the unscrupulous lot are using innovative techniques to cheat during exams. Question papers leak, and so do answer-sheets. Dummy candidates are a rage in the academic bazaar.

Except for a few colleges which are fighting against the trend, all other institutions have meekly surrendered, reducing examinations in the process to a routine task of churning out more and more graduates. Students too are to blame. Caught up in the materialistic rat race of an increasingly competitive world, they just do not want to go through the grind. The logic is simple: If you can buy a degree, why toil for it. So, pubs offer special discounts in the afternoon when students canblow up their pocket money.

And have you ever tried buying a ticket to an afternoon show in south Mumbai theatres. As students find ways to keep themselves busy away from the colleges, teachers keep themselves occupied with important works - like scanning calenders for a convenient date to strike work - if the agitation disrupts an examination or two, nothing like it. No wonder then, Mumbai is fast losing its status as a premier education centre to smaller cities like Pune. It's high time the city's guardians pulled up their socks to stem the rot. After all, it's not just a matter of teaching and a few stray cases of cheating, it's the making or the breaking of a city's Tomorrow.