Autonomy -The Last Laugh | posted by Atul

Autonomy.. An issue that has been coming up a lot in the last 2 years of our stay in the college.. The bias of the general student population has been against it.. Here's a view at the other side.

First of all, what is the word meaning of autonomy? It means, the possession or right of self government, or freedom of action.

This means that an autonomous college is one which is self sufficient.. Any deficiencies are overcome with a loan given by a monetary organisation. The first question that would come up would be, how do you repay the loan? This has a very simple solution.. An autonomous college is a collection of good and capable students.. And an autonomous college is FAR more preferred by companies coming for campus placements.. So naturally a good number of students will get placed.. And then, as alumni of the college, there can be a bond with the alumni to give some annual sum to the college.. The other solution is a fee hike.. Which somehow seems to be the more practical one.. Now, again the question comes up.. What about the extra amount that each student will have to pay.. I'm sure all of you have heard about education loans.. People are just dying to make students accept their loans.. And with more competition in the market, the loan schemes become better for the students.. The students have to repay the loans only after they get jobs.. A nominal amount is removed from the student's salary.. And thus in the form of installments, he can pay it back.. So, students will be able to easily manage this. This is exactly what happens in the IITs and the IIMs, which are autonomous institutes (to date).

The next difficulty that some people are talking about is that the teachers will set the syllabus for the semesters study. So, this may not be the best syllabus.. However, as far as this point is concerned, autonomous institutes have a very good selection procedure for selecting the professors. So again, that will not be an issue.

Now let us look at the good side of autonomy. Autonomy will be an indication to the world that this college stands out when compared to other colleges in Kerala.. Companies will be more motivated to come to our college.. More students will get selected..

Students will be given better material to work with. Whether it is the lab, or it is the class room environment, or it is the quality of education, everything will be at par with the premier institutes in India.

Take a simple example of our college.. Every 6 months there is COMPLETE commotion in the college.. This is because the university has put dates for the examinations, and more often than not, the dates either keep changing till the last moment, or are not in the best interests of the students. The closest example I can cite is that of a few days back, with the commotion of Lab exam dates. With an autonomous institute, this will not be an issue at all.. The dates of all classes and exams for the semester will be supplied at the beginning of the semester.. So, there is no suspense element as is the case with our college at the moment. Due respect has to be given to the university however, because they have to handle over 1000 exams every 6 months, which naturally makes their task difficult.

Today, the university lab exams that are conducted in our college are undoubtedly the toughest lab exams in India.. Why is this?? Simply because a whole lot of weightage is given for a 3 hour performance of a student.. Different people are given different questions.. And more often than not, the difficulty levels of different questions are vastly varying. Some people 'escape' with simple questions, whereas others are not so lucky. The result is.. People end up with supplementaries.. A dark mark on the B Tech career, with not much fault of their own.. Sometimes the machines do not work.. Sometimes the equipment does not work.. Sometimes the CRO has a problem.. In our fourth semester Electrical Machines Lab I exam, some people got Sumpner's back to back test on 2 single phase transformers as their experiment, whereas some people got Output characteristics of a DC generator.. Anyone with a minimum knowkldge of the subject would understand the difference between the 2 experiments.. VAST.... Unfortunately some people ended up failing the test, when they could have easily passed some other test. Again in S5, some people got RAMP generation, and this time, a majority of the students who got this question failed. Why?? There was no problem with the design.. There was no problem with the setup.. But the equipment did not work.. Can a Maths student calculate how many combinations are possible for correcting a circuit, with atleast 2 of the components not working??

Autonomous institutes provide the perfect solution.. Take the example of any institute.. They look at performance of the student daily.. Every day the student is evaluated for his lab work. And finally there is a lab exam with a very low weightage overall.. So, if you are genuinely good, then you will definitely do well..

An autonomous college will support the presence of a student council which can act as a means of communication between the board of directors and the students, with no bias to any political flavour.

It is sad to see people thinking of autonomy as, the college making the same mistake as was made by Indians when they started trading with the British.. And that just like what happened at that time, we will again lose our freedom. As was pointed out by a student of our own college in a discussion on the topic.. Autonomy is freedom. Autonomy a step to the future.. All institutes will eventually become autonomous.. Why not make ours one when we have the means and the permission to do it?

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