BA Calcutta (Failed)

[AK84]

Education in the Raj at that time and for decades afterwards had the basic educational qualification of “matriculation” taken at 16 or after 10 years of education and after that you had 4 years of college divided into two parts.
2 years leading to a degree called a “Faculty of Arts or Science (almost always referred by to by the abbreviation FA/FSc)
Then 2 years for a Bachelors of Arts or Science degree. You then could do a Masters (2 years), if accepted.

After FA/FSc but before BA/BSc a person could apply to and be accepted by a professional school like Medical/Dental, law, engineering etc or the military academies, they would then follow whatever that schools educational schedule was.

FA/FSc was a rather challenging course to pass. BA/BSc was considered difficult to fail.

The words BA (Fail) would not be something put in an advert in real life, except as a joke. It’s saying the person was too dumb to pass BA.

[md-2000]

@pseudotriton_ruber_ruber

I think there’s a scene in John Huston’s THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING featuring an Indian who includes in his self-introduction (to Michael Caine on a train) as “Oxford, failed” or some such.

I was thinking of the same scene - I vaguely recall it was “failed University of Calcutta and now letter writer for the illiterate masses…” just before Sean Connery throws him from the moving train.

[its_the_daddy]

“The eyeballs in the sky!!”

[md-2000]

Thinking more about it, I believe his introduction/resume was “…failed entrance exam, University of Calcutta…” I’ll have to dig up my DVD and get the exact wording.

Either this is the source of what you are thinking of, or it was a common trope back in the 70’s?