"Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it." - Thomas Jefferson

Mohammad Adil Hossain has been suspended from the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) (which, incidentally, makes him the 148th student to be suspended by the University’s current vice-chancellor). One of the suspension charges include “resorting to and misusing the internet to tarnish AMU’s image”.

For the uninitiated, Adil is a student of Mass Communication in AMU, who has alleged the presence of “high-level corruption, authoritarian mechanism and religious bigots” inside the university. He has used the RTI Act to seek information on the alleged “financial bungling” at AMU, and has also criticized the suspension of Dr. Siras, speaking out against the university’s stand on the issue of homosexuality.*

On his blog, Adil has been written about several issues including the alleged corruption of the University officials, the lack of a placement cell for the Mass Communication department, the illegal dues charged by the canteen and the alleged intrusion of privacy by the University’s 57 CCTV cameras. He was quoted in the 8 March 2010 issue of Outlook as saying “Freedom of expression and democratic representation among students is totally denied here” (AMU has refused to give clearance to a proposal to set up an independent student newspaper, which the university’s vice-chancellor describes as “a hidden agenda to destabilise the varsity”).

The original memo signed by the AMU proctor on June 3 accused Adil of “indulging in rumourmongering, canard-spreading and defaming the AMU and also depicting the entire institutional infrastructure and administrative apparatus in poor light” (although now, 3 days later, an AMU spokesperson insists that Adil has been suspended for “various incidents of indiscipline including blocking the road and protesting against a power cut caused by a storm” and making “defamatory remarks against the university when a student lost his life while trying to cross a railway track”).

It might be possible that Adil is just a disgruntled student. His accusations about the alleged “spy agency of AMU, which snoops on its students and teachers” (on the issue of CCTV installations in the campus) might be a wild flight of fantasy. In the worst case, he might just turn out to be a publicity-seeking youngster. But none of these is a good reason to deny him the right to freedom of speech.

According to the Indian constitution, reasonable restrictions can be imposed on an individual’s right to freedom of speech and expression in the interest of public order, security of State, decency or morality. None of Adil’s accusations endanger either public order or security of the State. Nor are they indecent or immoral.

The suspension notice served to Adil by the AMU Proctor states that he had “misused the internet for passing critical remarks against the University administration onto websites which mostly deal with news pertaining to AMU and its alumni.” This suspension sets a dangerous precedent which should cause concern to not only the bloggers, but also to everybody else who supports the right to freedom of speech and expression. Given the poor quality of education in this country, it’s only natural that a number of students disapprove of the administration of their college they study in. It’s absurd to suspend a student simply because he or she is critical of the college or university administration. The right to criticize one’s educational institute is inherent in one’s right to freedom of speech and expression.

They often pronounce Evelyn Beatrice Hall‘s famous words in the classrooms: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” (though they usually misattribute it to Voltaire). Maybe they should try standing by these words sometime.

* On 8 February 2010, Srinivas Ramachandra Siras, a 62-year old reader of Marathi in the Department of Modern Languages at AMU, was reportedly caught in a homosexual act on camera in his own house by two “journalists”. According to the charge sheet filed by AMU, the “journalists” informed the university’s deputy proctor, which resulted in its Public Relations Office and Proctor landing in Siras’ house two hours after the incident. The next day, Siras was suspended for “gross misconduct” under rule 403-C of the AMU statute, without any opportunity to present his case. Homosexuality is not acceptable in India, but in Naz Foundation v. Govt. of NCT of Delhi (2009), the Delhi High Court held that treating consensual homosexual intercourse between adults as a crime is a violation of fundamental rights protected by India’s Constitution). As a reuslt, there were many voices against Siras’ suspension, and on 1 April, the Allahabad High Court stayed the suspension. On 8 April, Siras was found dead in “mysterious circumstances”. The two “journalists” were later arrested on 19 April, and charged with forcibly entering Siras’ house and causing physical harm to him. See the Alternate Law Forum (ALF) report (PDF) on the case for details.

To develop a culture of collaborative learning in its schools, the Government of Kerala has launched schoolwiki.in under the aegis of its IT@School project. The website was made accessible for the schools in Kerala yesterday on the Kerala Piravi Dinam.

schoolwiki.in, a part of the Kerala's IT@School project

Unlike the Karnataka Knowledge Commission, which decided to spend Rs. 2 crore in duplicating efforts of Kannada-language Wikipedia, the IT@School folks have decided to use their resources for more useful things. The schoolwiki.in website doesn’t aim to create yet another Malaylam Wikipedia; in fact, it links to Malayalam-language editions of the Wikimedia sites, including Wikipedia, Wikiversity, Wikisource, Wikibooks, Wiktionary and Wikiquote. It aims to create a comprehensive knowledge database of all the schools in Kerala, plus a repository of the educational contents prepared by the teachers and the outcomes of academic group activities of the students.

The schools can edit the wiki to enter details such as information about the school, statistics, alumni listings, websites and blogs, clubs and student groups, class magazines, images and videos. The best part is that the students in Standard 8, 9 and 10 will contribute to the schoolwiki.in in form of school newsletter (Pradeshika patram), local encyclopedia (Nadodi Vijnanakoshan), “My Village” pages (Ente Nadu), under the guidance of Malayalam language teachers.

Isn’t that a great way of helping the students learn the value of collaboration and teamwork in the Internet age, and at the same time enhance their ICT skills? Hopefully, other states will follow the suit.

The management education at SPJIMR largely revolves around understanding – most of the tests are open book/open laptop, and don’t require any rote learning. The Mumbai University exams were an altogether different experience: “mugging up” was an absolute necessity, a vast majority of the student ‘projects’ were farce, and the syllabus was completely outdated.

Today, I was going through an article by Elizabeth Haas Edersheim, which speaks about two initiatives taken by the Government to tackle the primary challenges being faced by the Indian education system: (1) revamping an outdated curriculum and (2) upgrading the faculty.

While making the curriculum up-to-date and ‘upgrading’ the existing faculty are necessary, I believe that the primary challenges are two other inter-related issues:

1. Ensuring good quality of education amid the exponential increase in the number of educational institutes
2. Attracting bright minds to the teaching profession

With incompetent regulatory bodies like AICTE (which is mired in controversy and corruption) at helm, the increase in the number of educational institutes (esp. MBA and engineering colleges) over the past decade has not resulted in a proportional increase in quality of education. On the contrary, the number of ‘accredited degree mills’ has increased significantly.

There are a number of colleges (esp. MBA institutes) that charge lakhs of rupees as fee, and as a result have excellent infrastructure to showcase. These institutes have great-looking brochures that boast about the quality of education and rich academic experience on the offer. But, the truth is that the academic standards in most of these colleges are pathetic, to say the least. What’s the reason?

First, there is lack of good faculty: teaching, as an occupation, is not the primary choice for vast majority of the bright Indian students. Most of these students prefer taking up MNC jobs, which promise them a good salary and a higher standard of living. Many of those who are interested in teaching end up teaching in coaching classes, which offer them better salaries. Those belonging the academically inclined and research-oriented minority, are forced to limit themselves to the the top Indian institutes or the renowned foreign universities, where they get respect and money for what they do, in addition to good students and a wide range of opportunities.

This has become a vicious cycle: Because the salaries in most colleges are not good, these colleges attract incompetent faculty. Because the faculty is incompetent, the students are incompetent. Because both faculty and students are incompetent, the colleges do not have a sound reputation. Because the students are bad and the colleges are not reputed, the competent academics stay away from these institutes, paving way for incompetent faculty members who are ready to work at low salaries.

Issues like caste-based reservations only add to the problem.

The main challenge that India faces is ensuring that the bright minds in the nation have incentives (monetary or otherwise) to pick up teaching as a profession. This will automatically result in a better education system.