It is a matter of grave concerns that issues like ragging still find place in institutes of learning and education. Whether it is news catching cases of Aman kachroo in Himachal Pradesh or agricultural institute ragging incident in Andhra Pradesh, the so called ice-breaking practice seems to only corroborate in evil sense. One shudders on the mere thought of innumerable ragging cases that must be plaguing in different colleges in different parts of the country.
What needs to be in place in times today is not beat the culprit policy based on punishments like restrictions, expulsions or suspensions, for they would serve a short term goal of reprimanding the guilty, but an holistic approach to end ragging in long run paving the ways to restore peace and harmony within every individual in more stressful times to come.
There have been many initiatives in form of Raghavan Committee Recommendations taken up in past with achievements in form of anti-ragging squads formation in colleges, but with today’s highly pressurized life-style, one need to go back to basics to overcome this menace.
There exists a thin line between being immoral and being amoral. To root out both, one needs to lay emphasis on Primary school education. For this, the core requirement is to make every student a morality-literate individual right from the primary school education till he/she passes senior secondary school education. This would call for incorporation of a subject covering morals, ethics, principles, society dynamics & individual behavior. A span of one subject at various levels over a period of 8 to 10 years will lay the creation of law abiding, moral and honest human beings. The evaluation of a student in this subject would be based on grading scales and in order to encourage students to take up this subject more seriously, reward in form of certificates can be given to individuals scoring highest grades. This would help every student to be sound and rational in decision making process at the time of higher education studies. In a nutshell, a slow but a robust process having longest positive impact on the society.
Another improvisation needed in today is to make anti-ragging squads (ARS) more vigilant and action oriented in various institutes and colleges. This entails providing an SMS service to students to report any startling ‘ragging’ activity in college/hostel premises to ARS before becoming victim to the menace. The major step to be taken in this direction is to grow the size of ARS in every college to address concerns like availability and place an inspection team of faculty/professors to check regularly over the activities of ARS.
Third initiative would be in form of mentor-mentee program wherein ever senior would be allotted a couple of juniors who can have a highly interactive sessions that will help in confidence building measures during the stay in the college. A group of two to three mentees would deter any senior from exploiting one individual’s integrity and a diversified group would deter any unforeseen regional bias. Moreover, under the aegis of this program, by making the education more professional and research oriented, students (read seniors) at various levels can be encouraged to take activities or assigned tasks with juniors (as subordinates) to have those strong bullet points written on CV’s/resumes in a professional course and references in research proposals (in form of apprenticeship ).
Last but not the least, innovation would come in form of ice-breaking sessions to be held between seniors and juniors in form of a grand scale function organized yearly right in the beginning by college authorities’ who will address the concerns of a timid junior and assertive seniors.
I certainly feel measures like these would pave the success of having rational and healthy mindset amongst the student fraternity in ever walk of life.
