Our country has been forced to admit a lot of ground realities in this pandemic. By the heart-breaking visuals of migrants walking home we learnt how fragile and lop-sided our development is. In the news of suicide of a Dalit student in Kerala driven by inability to access internet, we learnt how a digitally connected India is a far fetched dream. In all this, we’ve also been forced to admit a lot of denial about our conditions that we carry around. The fact remains that the charades about a developed India are still mere words. In all this, functioning of VIT, and the apathy of its administrators has left students suffering has brought to light how utterly pointless Indian education as a whole is.
For starters, after deciding to abruptly end a semester in a week, VIT began its next semester nearly a month back. However, instead of using this opportunity to finally change the way learning happens, VIT decided to go full throttle in the opposite direction. To begin with, there seemed to be a sudden degree of urgency towards finishing course syllabuses. All of a sudden, VIT declared Saturdays working, and also effectively pre-poned all assessment and assignment deadlines. Since then students have been forced to sit up long hours in front of screens, not only attending classes but also using the limited relaxation time provided to instead complete assigned work.
But what could be perhaps described as the most elitist rant, VIT not only decided to conduct exams, but students were sent out emails saying internet connectivity and power issues were not something the university would take into consideration in case exams are disrupted at the students end.
There are several questions which one is bound to raise here- are our university administrators so blind to the realities of our nation? How much apathy do administrators carry towards students? And how one dimensional and narrow is our definition of education and learning? Moreover, given VIT’s history of sexism, apathy and student oppression, how weak are checks and balances that our government initiates before awarding and patronizing institutes whether by IoE status or NIRF ranks?
Students and teachers alleged, these decisions, were simply taken to act as kind of ‘balancing’ act for paying faculty in the previous few months without having to take classes. In all this, the futility of Indian education in general was visible vividly, as faculty admitted on occasions that the amount of stress put upon students and the tight deadlines meant learning had taken a backseat, everyone is merely chasing deadlines and running against time.