One of the distinct memories that I have of my kindergarten days was the ceremony which we kids knew would happen everyday. The first thing in the morning, the teacher would open this long book with yellow/green tinted papers in which she would have written all our names in neat handwriting. The whole process was ritualistic - each kid's name being called out with utter solemnity and our expected response - 'Present ma'am'. This would be done once a day (in the morning), though I faintly recollect attendance being taken for the post-lunch sessions as well. This must have happened during my fifth grade. Apparently some of the boys used to go home for lunch and would not return for the rest of the day.
I tried my best but could not recollect any discussions regarding shortage of attendance between me and my peers. Of course we were kids and this was one lesser thing for us to worry about. Also, at that time, my tiny mind did not definitely deem it to be an issue of epic proportions worthy enough to be discussed on FM radio for about three hours because, well....there were other burning issues.
This morning, I put on my headphones to listen to the customary chatter on FM Radio. Two radio jockeys were discussing a 'burning issue' - an order supposedly issued by the All India Council for Technical Education scrapping the mandatory 75 percent attendance for engineering students'. As I heard the discussion between the rather enthusiastic RJ's (probably they had been engineering students in their earlier avatars? ) and the vindicated listeners (a good majority of whom appeared to be engineering students), I realised that the debate was turning out to be pretty polarising. 'Is it a good idea to have mandatory 75 % attendance for engineering students?' -this turned out to be moot point in the trend of the discussion on both the FM channels (till as such time the RJ's realised the goof up).
There were various strands to this debate, most of which can be summed up as follows. First and foremost was notion that after the rigmarole of preparing for the various entrance examinations, it is but natural to consider colleges as fun spaces and therefore, attendance appeared to be an antediluvian concept in such spaces. Secondly, (and oddly enough) students are old enough to decide whether they would want to attend the classes because they are old enough to decide. What was also happening was that these notions, with their polarising potential, were preventing a larger and more relevant debate through a brute majority of shallow opinions.
Let's take a step back and try and understand who are the students who 'opt to study' engineering, how are they coached for the entrance exams, what are the pedagogical methods/practices adopted by the corporate colleges who scream from the rooftops about the number of admissions that their institutions have secured, how the same system percolates and is sometimes reinforced in engineering institutions due to the lack of quality faculty and misguided 'vision and mission' of the institutions, and how all of this results in the majority of the institutions churning out frustrated graduates who find it difficult to secure relevant and purposeful employment or find it difficult to pursue higher studies. Answers to such questions would also throw into relief the increasing number of student suicides (both at coaching centres and engineering colleges) and the growing unemployability of the engineering students. And the debate would show that emphasis on rote learning, inconsistency between the curriculum and industry, lack of opportunities for relevant internships and vocational projects and limited access to hands-on learning intervene and make this cycle more vicious.
Therefore, we must step beyond the polarising aspect of this debate and understand how the right words and phrases used in the fake order enabled an instant connect with a growing number of disgruntled engineering graduates who are seeing limited scope for their campuses functioning as spaces facilitating a lifetime of learning and fulfilment. While doing so runs the risk of validating the issues raised by the circular (and I doubt if the NSSO indeed conducted such a survey as claimed in fake circular), it should rather be seen as an opportunity to deliberate upon the ways in which engineering education in our country can be made more relevant, purposeful and rewarding. And with the majority of the students in our country 'opting' for engineering, there is a critical need for such an engagement.
PS: This post was originally written in Jan 2018, when the fake AICTE circular started making its rounds. AICTE swung into action and established that the circular was fake.
