KOCHI: “Those who protest do so because of fear of losing the political freedom inside the campus once the college becomes autonomous. Government autonomous colleges will be directly monitored by the government and university,” said Jayakumar.
The Ernakulam Government Law College too has been a victim of violent student politics. In the year 2013-14, the police registered 12 cases in Law College. In Maharaja’s College, the number of police cases registered last year stood at 15.
A Government Law College teacher on condition of anonymity said teachers often keep mum fearing threats. “Any action against them can land the staff in trouble because there are influential leaders behind these small campus leaders,” the teacher said.
The strikes mostly affect the senior students as first year students are exempted and can attend classes. For example, during the last semester, November to March, first year law students attended about 250 hours of classes while the 3rd year students attended only about 150 hours. Until November last year, the college did not have the number of working days recorded in a proper system.
The college has high academic potential to initiate new projects, but no such initiative was witnessed in the last two years. Both teacher and student community allege that funds are not being utilised efficiently.
But the college authorities deny that classes have been affected. “There were some issues last year and the campus had witnessed some clashes. This year issues were minor and has not affected the classes,” said Lovely Paulose, principal, Government Law College.
The Kerala Students Union (KSU) and Students Federation of India (SFI) have taken a total of 9 district level strikes and 4 state level strikes inside the campus in the last one year. The KSU took out 8 unit level strikes in law college during the period and 3 unit level strikes in Maharaja’s. The SFI members stated that they had not taken out any unit level strikes.
T V Francis, Principal, Maharaja’s College said the strikes and protests have not affected the classes deeply. “It is after a long time that the college was shut down for so long following violence. Usually, when there is a strike or protest, the classes are suspended for one or two hours and once everything cools down, students are back,” the principal said.
