Why St Stephen’s College should not go for autonomy
Given the plight and attitude of the faculty of St Stephen’s College, and their getting the students and karmacharis embroiled in this issue, it is imprudent and impractical to saunter into autonomy.
The teachers there, unlike those in 500 other institutions all over the country, are crying out: “Please have mercy on us. We are not equal to the task. You’ll kill us if you make additional intellectual demands on us.”
This desperate and heart-rending cry is not made behind curtains of privacy. It is out in the open, in full public view. It is that desperate!
Imagine some 50 teachers standing and crying in the public square. The management must have hearts of flint to overlook this primeval sorrow. Surely, compassion is a greater value than autonomy.
I happened to chance upon a fact-sheet that one of the faculty members has put out in defence of the faculty’s resistance to autonomy. This document, he claims, was prepared in consultation with two others as well. It is a long list of apprehensions and objections. It is enough to consider just one of them.
If autonomy comes, would teachers be required to do the same number of hours of work, which is 16 for assistant professors and 14 for associate professors per week?
It is an open secret that several teachers of some seniority stop preparing lectures afresh. They recycle old notes. So, in effect such specimens of academic inertia work only a trifle more than the hours thus specified. Imagine working only 16 hours a week!
A doctor works 50 hours per week. Many in the IT sector work 12 hours a day. Over and above this miniscule work, all teachers flout the University Grants Commission rule that every faculty member should be available in the place of work for 40 hours per week. There are a few who shortchange even the prescribed minimum. But let that be.
About ten years ago a student from Brown University, US, Thane Richards, came to St Stephen’s on an exchange programme. After spending a semester in the college, he wrote a forthright article on the abysmal quality of teaching that the faculty do. He admits to have suffered enormously on account of them.
So, it makes eminent sense that the teachers are scared or reluctant to take on syllabus formation or any aspect of autonomy. Their apprehensions are well-founded; for the purpose of autonomy is, after all, improvement of academic standards. That will surely mean more work and greater competence from them.
Now consider syllabus formation. The faculty member referred to earlier, to my utter astonishment, assumes that syllabus formation is a daily task! Syllabi, in Delhi University, are revised once in 20 years! Let us assume that if St Stephen’s becomes autonomous, the syllabi would be revised once in five years. Is that a backbreaking thing? If the teachers want work load reduced for something as infrequent as this, what does it show of their attitude to work and outlook on life?
This, and nothing else, is their allergy to autonomy. They will root for autonomy if the basis is that teachers shall teach as and when they please. I would advocate a compassionate view on their miserable predicament. It is the bottom-line of fellow-feeling.
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| Intellectual matters can accommodate no coercion. |
There was a time when teachers refrained from making such self-denigrating public confessions out of a sense of shame, if not self-respect. What are we to make of teachers who assume that their resistance to autonomy is justified just because karmacharis and undergraduates agree with them?
Goodness gracious me! Never thought it would come to such a pass! The teachers are admitting ipso facto that their academic calibre, understanding and stature are on a par with these two "stakeholders". Well, if that is their claim, why should you or I contest it?
I have had the occasion to conduct staff orientation programmes for three colleges in Kerala in the recent months, all in connection with autonomy. They are: CMS College, Kottayam, Assumption College, Chenganassery and Sacred Heart College, Ernakulum. I was deeply impressed, in each case, with the enthusiasm of the faculty and their willingness to take on additional responsibilities.
I really wonder how my erstwhile colleagues in St Stephen’s would feel when they realise that the faculty of some 500 institutions in this country has had no problem with autonomy? Are they more inefficient and under-qualified than all the rest?
Reportedly, the unofficial Staff Association of St Stephen’s has persuaded its naïve members to resign from all extra-curricular responsibilities. They should know that it is a gross violation of their service contract, by which they had clearly undertaken to do “such other duties as the principal assigns to them from time to time.” Teachers cannot be a law unto themselves; saying one thing when they need a job and doing just the opposite once they are in.
Intellectual matters can accommodate no coercion. With unwilling teaching faculty you cannot excel. The standard of education, given this huge liability, will go further down. It already is precarious! The only redeeming feature (sadly) is that other institutions are marginally worse.
I can also understand why what I am advocating could seem suicidal for the management. They know that underlying the belligerence of the faculty there is a seething power-struggle. Certain faculty members of the college think they are the proprietors of the college. Only they have the right to decide what and how the college should be. If the GB goes back on its decision, being browbeaten by the present show of aggression by the faculty, it could be seen as a serious setback.
Not really! Taking a mature view of the situation, in light of a startling reality that has now come to light full-blown, it is not cowardice but maturity. On the basis of the reality that has come to light the only thing the management can do is to conclude that they cannot organise a cavalry, metaphorically speaking, with bullocks and buffalos. It will be disastrous to persist.
It can also be argued the other way. It is for want of the provisions and freedoms of autonomy that St Stephen’s has come to such a sorry pass. If urgent, radical, remedial action is not undertaken, the patient will die. Asphyxiated by mediocrity, it is already gasping for breath.
But there is this little thing. The teachers of St Stephen’s will discredit themselves in the eye of the public nation-wide, if that were to happen. They will be defeated by their victory and weakened by their new sense of power, derived, no doubt from students and karmacharis.
Next time they go round parading themselves as “professors of St Stephen’s College” they should watch out for reactions. Don’t be surprised if there are sniggers from truly autonomous street urchins.