At an engineering college in Kerala, a Catholic priest presiding as its manager keeps a close watch on any long interactions between boys and girls; while students who grew up with smartphones are banned from using them in hostel rooms during certain hours.
The suspected suicide of a 20-year-old student at Amal Jyothi Engineering College in Kottayam district’s Kanjirapally last week has brought attention to how self-financing engineering colleges in Kerala have straitjacketed their students in pursuit of academic goals.
Sradha Satheesh, a fourth-semester food technology student at the Church-run college, was found hanging inside her hostel room on the night of June 2, a day after the college reopened for a new academic year. That afternoon, at the food technology lab, an instructor had caught her using her mobile phone, which is prohibited, and seized it.
One of her classmates, who did not want to be named, said, “The instructor handed over the phone to the department head, who informed her parents about the matter. Sradha returned to the college hostel and did not speak to anyone.”
That night, when others were having dinner, Sradha stayed back at her hostel room, where she is suspected to have hanged herself.
Sradha’s death prompted protests by students against the college management.
Story continues below this ad
On Thursday, the state government brought the management and the students to the negotiation table, where it was decided that the investigation into her death would be handed over to the crime branch.
Stung by the incident, the state’s higher education department has asked all colleges and university teaching departments to form a student grievance redressal cell, with students’ representatives, within a month. An appellate body is also to be constituted at the university level.
Pointing to a systemic issue, Higher Education Minister R Bindu said, “Many self-financing institutions are exerting unnecessary pressure on students under the guise of discipline. Unfortunately, such institutions do not have an open approach in tune with the times. All the students are adults, but the institutions do not consider them as grown-ups. Moral policing, surveillance at the colleges have taken away the space for healthy friendships.”
The minister said the seizure of mobile phones has been seen in many institutions and that the practice amounted to an infringement of privacy.
Story continues below this ad
“There is no room for friendship. If a boy and a girl are found chatting, they will be photographed and their ID cards will be seized… All public places in the campus are under CCTV,” a fourth-semester B.Tech student of the collage said.
Father Mathew Paikatt, the manager, justified his approach. “The college is not against healthy friendship between boys and girls, but we will allow only responsible freedom. There are students who sit together for long hours alone. On such occasions, I ask them what their problem is. If there is a love affair, I want to know. They should tell me if there is any private affair, because their families have to be informed. Parents spend their money to send their wards to college,” he said.
Another student, one of Sradha’s classmates, said the use of mobile phones was banned in college, and that even in their hostel rooms, students were not allowed to use phones between 8.30 pm and 11.30 pm – designated as study time.
Story continues below this ad
“Women security staff go around the hostel to see if anyone is using their mobile phones during this time. There are several instances in which the authorities seized our mobile phones, issued memos to us, or summoned our parents to the college,” said the student.
“There is a dedicated corridor for us to go from the girls’ hostel to the main college area. At the college canteen, we are allowed to spend only an hour. We can’t turn up late to the hostel,” another student said.
The manager said the discipline in the college was an important factor in parents sending their children there.
“There are many parents who have chosen this college for their wards because it gives them safety and discipline. Many prefer this college on account of this. We have a responsibility towards the parents, who have spent their money for their children’s education. We have 3,200 students, and 1,900 of them stay in hostels. We cannot make all people happy,” he said.
Story continues below this ad
“While many colleges have democratically elected student unions, such a process does not happen here,” a fourth-semester student said.
After the meeting with the college management and the students, minister Bindu has directed the college to form a students’ union through election.
Kerala has 177 engineering colleges, with a total intake of 55,931 graduate and postgraduate students as of 2021-22.
As many as 163 of the 177 colleges in Kerala are self-financing ones, and have come up over the last two decades after the state decided to open up the higher education sector for private investors.
Story continues below this ad
However, many such colleges have been struggling for want of enough students. In 2011, the state’s engineering education sector, including self-financing, had 25,267 seats for various graduate programmes. However, student strength remained at 19,911. The number of seats for graduate programmes reached an all-time high of 37,453 in 2015, but the student strength was at 20,126 in that year. In 2022, the number of available seats fell to 31,428 as many institutions stopped several courses. Even then, only 15,326 students took admission in engineering colleges in Kerala.
Dr Rajan Gurukkal, a noted social scientist and vice-chairman of the Kerala State Higher Education Council, said, “The problem lies with the approach of these self-financing colleges, which are low income-generating ventures.
Many colleges are in severe crisis. By enforcing strict discipline, these colleges think that they can bring out good results, which in turn make their institutes sought after by the students. The colleges think that student enrolment can be improved in this way. When productivity is heavily linked with discipline, there will be a tendency to enforce military discipline on students.”
Gurukkal, a former vice-chancellor of Kottayam-based Mahatma Gandhi University, said harsh disciplinary norms could lead to the student community facing “severe mental strain”.
Story continues below this ad
“These students have grown up enjoying freedom… They overreact in such a highly coercive institutional atmosphere,” he said, adding that the pass percentage in Kerala engineering colleges was abysmally low.
At Amal Jyothi college, the management of the Catholic diocese of Kanjirapally and the Kerala Catholic Bishops Council (KCBC) have projected the student protest as “an attack on Christian educational institutions”.
KCBC president Cardinal Cleemis said there was a concerted attempt to create tensions at Christian-run educational institutions, and called on the state to provide protection against this. “We will cooperate with the probe (into the student’s death at Amal Jyothi college),” he said in a statement.
