Friday 2 March 2018

Violence in the Campuses

Very recently, a teenage student murdered a nursery student in a very reputed public school in Gurugram. The reason was very strange. The student was very weak in studies and was not prepared for the exam, slated for the same day. The killer student thought with the murder, the exam will be postponed. A similar incident happened in a prestigious school of Lucknow. Here, a teenage girl tried to kill, a nursery class girl.
These are not isolated cases. Now, the school and college campuses are always in news for such incidents of violence. There is a surge in the workings of the educational institutions that, if not checked and stopped, will lead on to disaster—a wave of violence and chaos. Senior students murder or attempt to murder juniors or fellow students at school or college, to get a day off or to settle any other matter. A student shoots and kills a principal. A student stabs and kills a teacher. Eight standard students proposing a sexual relationship with his female teacher. A student seven standard student threats a female teacher of rape if her daughter does not give her consent for the sexual relationship.  Girl students are dragged into cars, raped, killed and their bodies dumped on the wayside—for fun, say the killer students. Students thrash, even kill other students, get the act filmed and post it on social media. A girl commits suicide after being harassed by another student for her friendship with a student which was disliked by the other student.
This is the outcome of educational reforms and student-friendly education. Self-proclaimed champions of educational reforms brazenly declare their determination to defy the idea of excellence and merit. The nation and society themselves stand both shaken and stirred by these happenings but the reformist devotees are undeterred by all these disasters. There has to be intercession to stop and undo this kind of spiralling into chaos and killings.
It is as if the normative arrange that provides as the classifying structure of society is falling regularly, not just the institutions of the state failing. The elucidation is to offer moral guidance to the students to reinstate and endorse the norms of cultured united survival. But the Right of Education (RTE) Act has given a deadly blow to this concept. Now a novice learner is made to understand that he is very important and intelligent whereas his teachers and parents are only a tool to support him which is his fundamental right.
But, little did they realize that forced and compulsory education is just like bonded labour or child labour. If a child is forced to study in a school, it is just like slavery. Such forced and compulsory education is destroying the social order resulting increased cases of student suicides, depression and crime.
That means disapproving and exit from the old pattern and bringing the new norms by the state and to impose the norms, bringing disaster. Provisions like No Detention System, Choice Based Credit System (CBCS), Inflating the marks and grades in the name of moderation and standardization, percentile system, Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) etc have completely spoiled, not only the standard of the education but has spoiled the mind of the students.
What society sees, as an alternative, is reactive intolerance of students in state after state, from Kashmir and Haryana and Karnataka to Kerala: the police do not thwart motiveless violence against students and the laws is extremely soft and are slow to punish those responsibly. Even human right groups, NGOs, media etc blame teachers and institutions for the crime committed by the student which emboldens the perpetrators of the crime.  And even when they have put some offender behind bars, slow and even tawdry trial sees them free on bail sooner rather than later. The next move is to take away the charges against them as being a juvenile or innocent student. The release of dreaded murder and rapist in the infamous Nirbhaya case has emboldened such new entrants in the world of crime.
The new education pattern, brought in the name of reforms, has almost brought an end to the classroom teaching. Now teachers are always busy in seminars, conferences, workshops, projects, functions, parties, discussions, talks, publishing, academic tours, etc and they hardly meet the classes and thus spoiling the academic environment. If cheating in examination, evaluation and admissions is stopped, the pass percentage cannot cross twenty-five percent. Even in the best institutions like IITs, a fairly large number of failed students get passed by the help of courts. 
The prime minister wants to glimpse a New India, in the building which he wants the students to participate. Even more than emphasis for research and skilled education, every educational institution of India needs quantifiable actions for revitalizing the normative order of education and educational institutions, without which no nation can function articulately, leave alone transform itself into something better.

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