I, Valson Thampu, blame the teachers of St Stephen's College for academic rot

One of the riskiest things I tried to do as principal of St Stephen’s College was to improve academic standards, mainly in two ways:

(a) Making admissions transparent and strictly based on inter-se-merit, and

(b) improving accountability on the part of teachers.

Rather than respect the good intention underlying this effort, several teachers turned hostile and unfurled the panoply of war against me.

False cases were framed and the media, misled, was used extensively to mislead the public in every instance. I don’t think that teachers in any other college in the country have behaved so unscrupulously in living memory.

It goes without saying that not every teacher in St Stephen’s revels in misdemeanour. There are good human beings too and a few outstanding teachers as well.

Also read: Why St Stephen's has failed as a college

So what I say below does not apply to them.

Who are the rogues in disguise in the sanctuary of education need not be stated person-specific. The wearer knows where the shoe pinches. The college community too knows who they are.

The need to clear the air, by stating the truth, arises out of the fact that nation-wide publicity was given to the contrived mess. Also, the negative and gratuitously hostile attitude of many of the teachers is not confined to St Stephen’s, though it is here that it is most virulent.

Insofar as this is the foremost stumbling block in the path of education, it becomes necessary to educate the public on this issue; as they are the losers in this game of dishonesty and dereliction at work.

One of my actions that provoked a severe backlash is my insisting that a member of the English department, who had not been taking classes regularly for years, should either teach or seek happier pastures elsewhere. 

I did that after warning him three times of proven absenteeism at work and after getting from him, each time, written assurance that he would not repeat the offence.

Also read: Why admission to DU is not worth the craze

His students used to come and cry in my office, pleading for my intervention.

I had a long and frank discussion with him the fourth time it happened. I asked him to think hard and deep on the matter and come to an honest decision. Gave him a week’s time to do so. 

Two days later he met me and told me emphatically that he could not teach any more. He submitted an application for voluntary retirement. 

I was ferociously attacked for letting him go!

Why? Because these teachers, whose work culture left much to be desired, became insecure that they too would have to buck up or answer for themselves.

Several faculty members were not putting in their best. Some teachers were cheating on tutorials. There are a few teachers who spent far more time conspiring against one another and the institution than preparing their lectures. 

This is the truth and those who have been reading the newspapers are surely aware of it. This is a shame and it needs to change.

All right. Let’s assume that I am biased and hostile to teachers. But students? I give below excerpts from an article by an exchange student from Brown University (USA) published on April 30, 2013. 

Thane Richard had left the college before I became principal in 2007. He is denouncing what he experienced in St Stephen’s College as a student.

Academic excellence and St Stephen’s College: A response by Thane Richard

April 30, 2013

In 2007 I was a student at St Stephen’s College for seven months as part of a study abroad program offered by my home institution, Brown University. Most of my friends were third years, like me, and all of them were obviously very bright. I was curious about what their plans were after they graduated.  

With only a few exceptions, they were planning on pursuing second undergraduate degrees at foreign universities.

"Wait, what?! You are studying here for three years just so you can go do it again for four more years?" I could not grasp the logic of this.  

What changed my understanding was when I started taking classes at St Stephen’s College. Except for one, they were horrible.

This was not an isolated incident – all my fellow exchange students (six from Brown University and even more from Rutgers University in the next apartment block) concurred that the academics were a joke compared to what we were used to back home.  

In one economic history class the professor would enter the room, take attendance, open his notebook, and begin reading. He would read his notes word for word while we, his students, copied these notes word for word until the bell sounded.  

Next class he would find the spot where the bell had interrupted him, like a storyteller reading to children and trying to recall where he had last put down the story.  

He would even pause slightly at the end of a long sentence to give us enough time to finish writing before he moved on.  

And this was only when he decided to show up – many times I arrived on campus to find class abruptly canceled.

Classmates exchanged cell phone numbers and created phone trees just to circulate word of a canceled class. I got a text almost daily about one of my classes. My foreigner peers had many similar experiences.

I would sit in class and think to myself, "Can you just photocopy your notebook and give me the notes so I can spend my time doing something less completely useless?"

I refused to participate. Instead, I sat at my desk writing letters to friends.

If it were not for the fact that attendance counted towards my marks, I would have never showed up at all.  

There was no need. I calculated the minimum attendance required not to fail, hit that target square on, and still got excellent grades.  

In one political science class, the only requirements for the entire period between August and December were two papers, each 2500 words. I wrote more intense papers in my US public High School in a month.

Readings were required but how can this be enforced when there is no discussion that makes students accountable for coming to class prepared?  

The only questions I heard asked during my classes were about whether the material being covered that day would be on the exam. Remember, this is not any regular liberal arts college – St Stephen’s College is regarded as one of, if not the best, college in India.

Fact: every student at St. Stephen’s is part of India’s elite. While there is a reservation system for the admission of scheduled castes and others residing at the bottom of India’s socio-economic pyramid, once every student at St Stephen’s enrolls they become a member of the elite, irrespective of background.

With that name stamped on their diploma, the world becomes easier because they are part of "the club".

The opposite side of this same coin, though, is the upside St Stephen’s students could reap. St Stephen’s students also have the most to gain from change. Because St. Stephen’s College is such a great school, it can attract great names and create a great curriculum. 

Imagine if my teachers had actually taught their classes? Whoa! Instead of just the promise and illusion of an amazing liberal arts education, St Stephen’s students would get that education.  If the end is knowledge, then St Stephen’s students win big.

***

Here are the salient points the student makes.

1. The lectures he attended were horrible! He goes on to say that, if he had the choice, he would not have attended any of these lectures. Academics in St Stephen’s, in his words, "is a joke”.

2. He refers to teachers taking their work lightly. In one of the courses he took, the only requirement during the entire semester was just one essay of 2,500 words. Surely, that is not the whole of the course work. What indeed was the teacher concerned doing?

He refers to the un-scholarly approach to teaching. The only question asked in the class, he says, is "will this topic come for the examination?" Surely, this is not what St Stephen’s is meant to be. It breaks my heart to think that we have come to this sorry pass.

3. He underlines the "elitist" air of the college, which is the source of most of our aberrations. Thane Richard saw St Stephen’s as a "club".

4. He ends on a sad note. Imagine, he says, how wonderful it would have been "if teachers had taught". [That was my endeavour. To make teachers teach…and to teach with joy and confidence. I must admit I failed. I doubt if anyone can make an impression on these hard cases. There are some potentially good teachers and hope they grow and mature into outstanding talents in teaching.]

5. Read the last paragraph once again. Richard says clearly that the great potential of the college is being ruined by its teachers. Friends, this was the gist of the battle I fought. Later on I will write more about relevant details.

I had no special delight in courting unpopularity. No one, given the choice, likes to be unpopular. I too am a human being.  But I was responsible for looking after an institution of some distinction, which attracted the best students from all over the country.

I could not sleep over evident signs of academic rot. I did all I could and paid the price for it. I am glad I have; for at least I can live with a clean conscience, post-retirement.

To all teachers, including my erstwhile colleagues, who think they can cover their academic and professional mediocrity with the fig leaf of politics, blackmail and coercion, I appeal that they have compassion on the students. Their future should not be played with. 

Nearly a month before my predecessor, Anil Wilson, died I called on him. He was bedridden and fading out of life.

In the course of the conversation, Anil asked me, "Valson, do you think you can run the college?"

Even before I could make a reply he added, "You can’t. No one can."

It was the verdict of someone who was principal of St Stephen’s for 16 long years. That day I decided to accept the challenge in right earnest.

I have fought as best I could, without counting the cost. 

It is my faith that this period of aberration will pass and that the soul of the college will prevail, despite the worst that certain individuals might still do.

(I was the 12th principal of St Stephen’s College.)