Having had discussions with people from teaching
faculty in engineering colleges, it remains a shameful act on the part of
colleges to claim legally on their payment of salaries to
assistant/associate/professor as per the pay commission while rebating certain
amount back from salary to their coffers. How it happens is that the salary
will be credited to the bank accounts of the faculty and it is the
responsibility of the faculty to return certain amount in hand to the college
administration. Now, this situation is not limited to certain colleges/regions.
This predicament is the culmination of nexus of factors from students, parents,
faculty, colleges and society at large.
Engineering colleges have mushroomed at every nook and
corner of the country. There is fierce competition among colleges to garner student
strength. Also, this is the season (Apr-June) for fresh admissions and for
faulty recruitments. It may be good to shed some lights on the processes that
happen in the colleges which many are aware or have witnessed. We will also
take a complete view so that we will not point fingers at anyone but everyone
who are part of this system.
We will start with faculty recruitment. We know that
people who graduate from NIT/IIT carry a higher value and respect wherever they
work. Infact, few colleges have a separate column for them in their faculty
application. The plight of other people who graduate from thousands of colleges
around the country is still a questionable tact. Many of these graduates join
teaching out of interest or out of no choice eventually adding for heavy
onslaught for faculty positions in many private colleges. Pay scale seems to be
deciding factor on the final selection for faculty position and the college
administration negotiates on their favourable terms. Faculty agree on their pay
terms to retain the job in the hope of doing PhD and moving to a better
position in the future.
Now, the college which has recruited faculties and taken
in big bunch of students has to produce good results for it to sustain its
existence. Also, I heard that there is a separate agency for student admission
where these agencies scout around interiors of town as well as from other
states for a commission from college to consolidate physical count of students.
The college which has spent crores of rupees in building physical
infrastructure has to work harder for a quicker payback period. Now two things
to the equation – income and cost. Many colleges view students as their
customers and adjust the fee on the bargain for studying in their college. Management
now sets its view on cutting down costs in terms of rebating back payments from
faculty, less power supply, idle equipment, poor ventilation and making faculty
to do administrative work in the place of couple of staffs.
Students who don’t have sufficient knowledge to choose
a course or a career path have no choice but to join herd looking at what his
neighbour or his friend has chosen. Parents on their part want their
sons/daughters to complete an engineering degree not knowing what’s in it for
their sons/daughters and understanding the market scenario. They want to be
proud that their son is an engineer. They somehow arrange for money and pay
their fees becoming oblivious to know if their son is attending college
properly or learning anything better. Students on their mercurial adolescent
age traverse through extreme emotions, be it love or fight or haggle, and lose
their sight on studies. It becomes difficult for faculty to handle students, ignore
their immature behaviour, try vigorously to impart bit of knowledge into the
dull minds and conduct tests to produce cent percent results. College takes all
original certificates of faculty into their custody which is tactfully used as
a means to indirectly threaten them to oblige to the demands of college such as
producing 100 percent results, enduring foul language, carrying out additional
administrative work etc. Society has largely ignored the profligate attitude of
management and allowed for it to emerge into a dominant position for it to proffer
its own terms. Infact, many colleges have political backing.
One equation that stands tall looking at the scenario
is for the society to understand that holding a degree doesn’t add any value
unless you gather and apply your knowledge to practical problems. Don’t just
push your sons or daughters to engineering for the sake of grabbing a degree.
There are opportunities that exist in other fields and in businesses. Choose
wisely that nurtures your son with necessary tools for future. Management on
its part may seek to maintain its respect among stakeholders, especially
faculty by paying them what is duly right. Don’t dump classes in engineering
college with disoriented people and seek results from them and on the way,
pressurizing faculty and student to just clear the exams. If the focus shifts
to providing an ecosystem for learning, research and new ideas may well redeem
the malady that has caught the education system. Faculty should enrich
themselves with adequate practical and research knowledge than to just hold
degrees. I am not expecting anything to change in immediate/distant future but
it is in the hands of student to choose wisely.
