By Sharon ThambalaAmaravati, March 28 : At a time when students across the country salute the Indian flag and radiate in patriotic fervor during the Independence Day celebrations every August 15th and Republic Day celebrations on January 26th, several corporate junior colleges in Andhra Pradesh have made it a habit to brazenly shun these solemn national events.
This unhealthy and unpatriotic practice has been happening over the decades.
From blatantly conducting regular classes some years ago, these colleges are now grudgingly declaring holidays on these important days, coldshouldering flag hoisting, singing the national anthem and depriving students from admiring and gaining inspiration from these state functions.
Within a couple of months after leaving the school, where Independence Day and Republic Day functions were permanent fixtures on their academic calendar, students get stumped by non-stop classes dealing with Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Biology on these days in their ‘crucial’ two-year intermediate course.
This is a far cry from listening to a chief guest back in the school, eulogizing the greatness of our nation’s founding fathers and its inspiring heritage.
Chief guests from different walks of life such as a district judge or a district collector from the elite Indian Administrative Service (IAS) or an Inspector General of Police (IGP) from the Indian Police Service (IPS) waxing eloquent about the sacrifices and struggles undergone by the freedom fighters or how the Constituent Assembly drafted the great Constitution of India could be a normal thing to witness during school but seldom in Andhra Pradesh corporate intermediate colleges.
As these officials enter and exit a school campus, they expose the students to the great career opportunities, service paraphernalia and respect that they command in the society, thereby kindling the spark of ambition in these young minds to emulate them to serve this great country called India.
However, none of these activities are occurring in the corporate junior colleges where students with impressionable minds in the age bracket of 15-17 years attend.
The 2020-21 academic year was no different, most colleges shut their premises on January 26 and declared a holiday to students.
“We were given a holiday on August 15, 2020 for Independence Day and our online classes were cancelled.We didn’t have any programme about the Independence Day.It was the same on January 26, 2021 Republic Day, we were given a holiday,” a first year intermediate student from a Sri Chaitanya college located in Vijayawada said.
Similarly, another second year intermediate student from the same chain of colleges in Bhimavaram confirmed that the Republic Day was a holiday without any sort of observance or celebration on the day when the Constitution of India came into effect in 1950.
He said that it was the same for those two nationally important days in the previous 2019-20 non-pandemic academic year when he was in the first year.
“I think it will be good if they celebrate Independence Day and the Republic Day.I feel empty that we are not respecting our own national flag on those days.There was no opportunity to respect our country and flag,” he highlighted.
Some years ago it was worse, there used to be not even a holiday on those days but regular classes.
A phone call to the junior colleges coordinator at Kakinada Aditya Group of Institutions probing if they observe these two important days came in the positive but the official could not tell since when they started the practice of observing them as its college in Bhimavaram did not have the practice of observing them some years ago.
Andhra Pradesh corporate colleges are maniacally focused on pushing students to procure great ranks in engineering and medical entrance examinations so that they could be massively marketed to garner higher numbers of admissions, enabling the profiteering entities to make more money at the cost of denying even simple joys of life to their students.
Another peculiar trait of these colleges is to cut off access to students to a library.Most of them do not even have a library in the first place where students could learn on the goings on in the wider world.
V.Ramakrishna, Secretary, Board of Intermediate Education (BIE), said that education is not only found in the books alone but also in celebrating the many occasions and knowing their importance.
When checked with Ramakrishna if the BIE, intermediate education controlling government body, would take action on these colleges for blatantly ignoring and disrespecting the great academic traditions, he questioned how far can BIE resort to policing these erring colleges.
“In 21st century after 70 years plus of independence, should we need to police even for small things? We have to painstakingly develop the culture rather than policing,” told the BIE Secretary to IANS.
He noted that the method of policing for everything will not take us anywhere, unlike successfully using it for offences such as narcotics and drugs or law and orders problems.
“Somehow I am not a firm believer of policing the education department, though we definitely do certain regulation.These (observing and celebrating independence day and republic day) are the things in which we should try to bring a cultural and attitudinal change both in parents and teachers and students,” said the senior Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer.
Ramakrishna said that he will write a letter to all intermediate college principals and managements on this issue of observing nationally important events such as the Independence Day and the Republic Day.
However, he said that he will make that letter a demi official (DO) letter as some of these deep pocketed corporate colleges can drag him to Court contending that he cannot issue them such a letter.
Already, the BIE Secretary has been writing a fortnightly DO letter to his department colleagues and intermediate education stakeholders.
“If a bureaucrat writes a letter it becomes an order or official.So it has validity in the Court or everywhere.
DO letter is a kind of informal letter, just explaining that you have do things like this or that.Language can be beyond official,” noted Ramakrishna.
He said that this kind of demi official letters are used for attitudinal change, encouraging comradeship or esprit de corps.
The Secretary said that such things as observing August 15th and January 26th cannot be written officially.
Intermediate education in the state has been subjected to decades of abuse and profiteering by several entities, condoned by successive governments and senior officials, which is now being sanitized for the benefit of lakhs of students.
(Sharon Thambala can be contacted at thambalasharon@gmail
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