Coping with the curriculum at elite institutions

This blog post seeks to draw attention to a structural and systemic problem in India’s reputed educational institutions: their continued apathy towards student suicides. Shor and Freire (1987) in A Pedagogy for Liberation argued, “The more elite the school, the more it communicates to the students that they are going places, so there is a reason to put up with the curriculum” (p. 128). Those who fail to thrive at elite institutions internalise this dominant logic. It gets deeply rooted in the psyche of the struggling students. They tend to equate suffering as their fault (personal) and not of the system. The success stories of a few high-achieving graduates from these reputed institutions further reinforce the legitimacy of the system. The suicides, thus, are viewed as unfortunate anomalies by students and administration alike, and rarely as a sign of a systemic issue.

Student alienation

The majority of the students, who may not be at the top, feel unseen and often suffocated. At many institutions, the curriculum is outdated. When the institutions continue to produce success stories, there is little incentive for them to examine their curriculum. When some shine, the system appears fair and meritocratic, brushing aside the struggles of the majority of the students. Additionally, with pressure to do research, teaching gets relegated. Faculty members then identify themselves more as researchers than as teachers. They tend to chase research metrics and become emotionally unavailable to the needs of the student community. Earlier committee reports have found that students from marginalised backgrounds feel alienated, stigmatised, and out of place. However, institutional response to suicides is often superficial and short-term. The reality is that the structure itself is obsessed with placements, rankings, and aggressive competition, resulting in student distress.

Inadequate reforms

Consider the recent reforms undertaken at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur in the wake of student suicides. Among the measures introduced is the downsizing of ceiling fans in hostel rooms. It may reduce immediate risk; it exemplifies a knee-jerk and technocratic approach to suicides. Another initiative is the creation of “campus mothers,” wherein female faculty members and staff informally volunteer to provide emotional support to students. While the move may be well-intentioned, it shifts the burden of emotional labour disproportionately onto female members of the institute. Both measures are symptomatic of a culture wanting quick fixes instead of difficult conversations. The emphasis on “individual student” for suicides neglects the structural role played by institutions in pushing the students to the edge.

The deeper flaw in the narrative of meritocracy

Student suicides signal how society imagines success and merit. Why is there uproar on social media only when a student from an elite institution commits suicide? This reveals how a student studying at IITs and Indian Institute of Management (IIMs) may be perceived as more meritorious. Michael Sandel in The Tyranny of Merit highlights that in a society marked by deep inequalities, success stories are often about the privileges rather than merit. Apart from that, there is a growing parental and societal pressure to grab the highest annual CTC placement, partly fuelled by coverage of such success stories in mainstream media. Annual CTC then becomes a barometer for instant success. Merit itself tends to get measured in terms of an annual salary package. It forces students to chase short-term success defined only by the metric of placements. It’s hard to thrive in an environment wherein one’s self-worth comes to be measured through annual income. Peer support in such an environment manifests as peer hostility and toxic competition.

Under the aforementioned external conditions, no sustainable peer relationships can be built, and thus, the students are deprived of the joy of learning and a sense of belonging to the institution and to society. Unfortunately, suicide is a multi-dimensional and complex issue with no easy solutions, thus warranting a re-look at the reforms from a structural perspective.

References:

Sandel, M. J. (2020). The tyranny of merit: What’s become of the common good? Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

Shor, I., & Freire, P. (1987). A pedagogy for liberation: Dialogues on transforming education. Bergin & Garvey.

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Amit Yadav is a research scholar at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), Bhubaneswar, Homi Bhabha National Institute (HBNI), Training School Complex, Anushaktinagar, Mumbai.