The government and its universities: Ensuring teachers' accountability

Ensuring attendance is important but the govt must not curb voices from the teaching community that are critical of the govt

Recently I was witness to a discussion amongst some members of the JNU faculty. They were discussing a directive from the university’s administration, now a few months old, that henceforth marking attendance would be compulsory for everyone, students as well as teachers.

There was a lot indignation and even anger. The general refrain was ‘how dare they’ and the inevitable conclusion was that this was a BJP/RSS plot to ‘destroy’ the university.

At one point I asked whether they were genuinely satisfied that they were giving their 100 per cent. All said yes. 

So, foolishly, I asked how they were evaluated. That brought