Trouble brewing at Kerala's private engineering colleges

Suicide of student exposes cache of problems at institutes, which have struggled to fill their seats

In the Aamir Khan starrer 3 Idiots, an engineering student commits suicide due to pressure from the college management to perform better academically. A real-life case having disturbing similarities to the one in the film is being discussed widely in Kerala, with questions being raised about the way private educational institutions are run in the state.
 
Jishnu Pranoy, a first-year student of Nehru College of Engineering in Thrissur, committed suicide after he was allegedly caught cheating during an exam, an allegation his classmates reject. They said Pranoy was victimised for questioning the way exams were being conducted with the help of a private agency. Pranoy’s death exposed a long list of instances of mental, physical and sexual torture faced by students of private colleges in the state. Political parties were quick to take up the issue.

 
After several problems came to light, 120 private engineering colleges in the state closed down for a day, citing vandalism of their state head office by alleged activists of the Congress’ student arm, the Kerala Students Union.

The agitation spread to other colleges, and a stir by students at Kerala Law Academy, a privately-run law school in state capital Thiruvananthapuram, continued forclose to a month. These students demanded the removal of Kerala Law Academy Principal Lakshmi Nair, accused of nepotism and harassment.
 
V Muraleedharan of the the Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress leader K Muraleedharan have joined the students on their hunger strikes; Communist Party of India (Marxist) veteran and former chief minister V S Achuthanan-dan has supported them publicly.

 
Students say the problem is deep-rooted. “We are being harassed in the name of internal marks, as colleges can take a call on 50 per cent of the marks,” a student of a self-financing engineering college said on condition of anonymity. “We have no democratic rights on the campus or in the hostel. There are no student organisations or unions inside the campus, while some campuses even lack a proper parent-teacher association. Those who do not fall in line with the management are facing mental and physical harassment.” The student added that after 8 pm hostel authorities even seize their mobile phones, while in colleges the devices are banned. 

 
State Education Minister C Raveendranath said the government had decided to appoint a committee to study the functioning of private colleges. “The basic problem is with the way affiliations were given to these colleges,” said Chintha Jerome, chairperson of Kerala State Youth Commission. “Affiliations were given even to liquor barons and people with criminal charges against them. Education is being treated as just another sector for profit. We have got several complaints from students; we will set up a separate committee to look into this.” Jerome added that the commission would recommend the government to ensure that democracy prevailed on these campuses.

 
Several people blame former chief minister A K Antony for allowing private engineering colleges to mushroom. The private sector has seen investment of more than Rs 30,000 crore since 2002, with the share of private engineering colleges adding up to Rs 10,000-12,000 crore. Kerala has 157 engineering colleges of which 120 are run by private parties. In an effort to bring all these engineering colleges under one umbrella, the government set up the A P J Abdul Kalam Technological University in 2014.
 
“There started the real problems as the syllabus, performance barriers and year-out criteria became more stringent than arguably even in the IITs,” said Jory Mathai, president, Kerala Self Financing Engineering College Managements Association. “Students are under extreme pressure, so are managements to improve their performance.” According to the association, of the 120 colleges only 25 are profitable; 75 have incurred huge losses. “The remaining 20 colleges are struggling to admit even 200 students across all the four years,” Mathai said. At least 15 colleges are already up for sale. This is the status of a sector that provided Rs 12,000 crore worth of investment to the state in the last 15 years.” He added that this might be the reason for institutions to put pressure on students to perform. In some cases, institutions even give extra marks to students, in the hope that this might bring in more students the next year.

 
At least six colleges closed down or were diverted to other sectors in the last year. College managements cite surplus seats. Of the 103,000 students who appear for engineering entrance exams, 78,000 cleared it in 2015-16; only about 32,000 joined the courses. This is at a time when state colleges have a capacity of 58,000 students.
 
“We are not allowed to take students from other states,” Mathai said. “On the other hand, about 40,000 students from Kerala study engineering in states such as Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. There should be some law to save our investments as well.”

State of affairs at private engineering colleges in the state 

• Rs 30,000 cr investment in the private sector since 2002
• Rs 10,000-12,000 cr is the share of private engineering colleges in the investment
• 120 pvt engineering colleges, out of a total of 150 colleges
• 58,000 seats in pvt colleges
• 32,000 students admitted in pvt colleges 2015-16
• 15 pvt colleges up for sale