The Comedy Continues

Just like most of you, I have also decided not to take Anna University Vice Chancellor’s sermons seriously. He continues his attack on the student community by stating that the engineering students lack basic skills and knowledge.

Excessive use of mobile phone, indulgence in cinema and television are distracting today's youth upon whom the country's future lay and President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam had reposed faith in transforming India into a developed nation by 2020, D. Viswanathan, Vice-Chancellor, Anna University, has said.

Jobs were aplenty but engineering graduates were not competent, lacking in the basics of core subjects and application of knowledge as well as in communication skills, he said and pointed out that five lakh jobs were lying vacant in manufacturing and software companies.

That trend could be arrested with the intervention of parents and teachers, he said. "Parents' role is important. When their wards are in school the parents monitored their progress but once the children entered the college the parents seldom paid attention to their children." He advised the parents to do "good monitoring" of their children till they graduated.

Calling upon students to reorient their priorities, he told them that the burden of blame lay on their shoulders if they failed to perform. "Students are responsible for their own failures."

Isn’t it part of his duty to ensure that the students walk out of campuses fully equipped to face the outside world? Apart from the dress code, ban on cellphones and the ban on film-related events in culturals, what else is he doing to improve the standards in the university? If it all boils down to student discipline and enforcement of rules, we might as well appoint a cop to head the university rather than having an academician.