No, as the ‘system’ asserts, as teachers we can no longer escape from work. Gone are the days of being ‘lazy’, ‘inefficient’ and ‘irresponsible’ because here is the biometric system of attendance – yet another gift of the surveillance machinery – that will compel us to work, and generate what the university as a ‘product’ needs: the cult of ‘efficiency’, the measurement of ‘performance’, and the meticulously designed social engineering of what the MBA graduates are fond of regarding as ‘time management’.
The other day a student of mine teaching at a leading private university in Bengaluru told me: “Sir, you people are horrified because at JNU it is finally coming, but we are already experiencing it; we are used to it.” Yes, she is right. The system wants us to be used to everything it demands; and possibly, it is not far away when as teachers (even in this ‘radical’ university) we would begin to say that we are essentially immoral and irresponsible, and the biometric system is good because it forces us to work. This is the way the hegemony operates.
In this article I do not wish to be obsessed with my own university or its moment of darkness. Instead, with reflexivity enriched by criticality, I concentrate on two issues:
(a) Why is it that academic bureaucrats, policy-makers, techno-managers and even the larger society suspect us, and assume that we earn our salary without doing anything?;
(b) Is it really true that we give our best only when we are under surveillance? Or is it possible to unite creative freedom and engaged responsibility?
Genesis: negative stereotypes and wounded identities
You need not be a profound field worker to know, that as a society, we have already developed a set of stereotypes about teachers. First, we attach a negative gendered meaning to the vocation of school teaching; it is seen to be a ‘soft’ job which doesn’t require much talent, and it is good for women because men, in order to retain the patriarchal authority, have to enter the ‘hard’ domain of ‘true’ professionalism: techno-science and management, and bureaucracy and army.
Second, college/university teachers – particularly, those who are teaching liberal arts and social sciences, as the opinion goes, are not sufficiently talented; and unlike the professional faculty in the pampered IITS/IIMS, they are mere talkers, and do nothing substantial and relevant. No wonder, as the aspiring class laments, we have not yet produced our own Oxford or Harvard.
I know that the stereotypes are not absolutely unreal; possibly, living experiences, too, help to create these stereotypes. Yes, we have schools which, because of a faulty pattern of examination and evaluation, promote only rote learning; and creative experimentation is not supposed to characterise a teacher.
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She only does an 8 to 3 pm job, disseminates the ‘facts’ derived from the badly written textbooks, retains ‘order’ in the classroom, exist primarily as a passive employee, and even takes part in the census work or the polio vaccination programme. With a routinised B.Ed degree, an average intelligence, and some sort of efficiency in ‘spoken English’, anyone, as society thinks, can become a teacher!
This is a vicious cycle. The more society degrades its teachers, the more they become crippled. It discourages bright, young minds to join the vocation. Eventually, they become what society feels they are. Hence, all sorts of NGOs and techno-managers have the inherent right to ‘educate’ these teachers, ‘discipline’ them, and make them ‘productive’. These days, ‘workshops’ or ‘skill development’ programmes at schools is good business.
- As we see the arrival of the techno-managerial elite guided by the neoliberal logic of corporatisation of education, the discourse of ‘efficiency’ becomes irresistible.
Likewise, many of our colleges and universities, are acting like factories for mass distribution of degrees and diplomas. At a time when nepotism, political interference and networking severely affect the recruitment of teachers (what else can you expect when see the VC of a university in Andhra Pradesh speaking of the prevalence of ‘test tube babies’ in the age of Mahabharata in the Indian Science Congress), corruption is normalised, and teachers, barring exceptions, do not necessarily generate positive vibrations.
Furthermore, as we see the arrival of the techno-managerial elite guided by the neoliberal logic of corporatisation of education, the discourse of ‘efficiency’ becomes irresistible. It suspects ‘inefficient’ teachers; it dislikes ’empty ideas’; it wants tangible, solid, efficient ‘products’; and it needs to measure everything –the number of hours spent teaching, papers published in the journals with the high ‘impact factor’, ‘skills’ teachers disseminates in the allotted time, and the ‘ranking’ they assure.
In other words, the administrative/managerial logic is like this: Be harsh. Discipline these teachers. Make them work. Demand constant performance from them. Establish absolute visibility over everything they do!
Surveillance and the celebration of mediocrity
Is it, therefore, surprising that the biometric system of attendance becomes the natural choice: the logical consequence of a culture filled with what Michel Foucault would have regarded as the ‘micro physics of power’ assuring constant observation, hierarchisation and normalisation? Yes, it is smooth, technologically convenient and efficient.
If private universities have already introduced it, why should ‘politically disturbed’ public universities remain free from it? Don’t bother even if the leading universities in the world do not have it. As the UGC officials would argue, we are Indians; we are irresponsible; and hence, as some of our loyal vice-chancellors insist, we must be subject to surveillance.
However, let us ask the question: Does it necessarily assure good performance by teachers? This requires a deep understanding of the act of teaching and research. It needs creativity. It needs freedom. And it has no ‘fixed’ time. Even though you attend the 9 am class, deliver a lecture, it is not merely about one hour. Beneath a good lecture lies background research and reading which often take place at odd hours.
Furthermore, even if you are instructed to sit in your chamber from 9 am to 5 pm, it does, by no means, indicate that you are really growing, thinking and evolving. Perhaps, had you been able to attend a conference, visit a library or just watch a Mrinal Sen film (do all these registrars and vice-chancellors manage to watch good films, and read enchanting books?), you have enriched yourself as a teacher/thinker/researcher.
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No, techno-managers and stubborn, non-reflexive vice-chancellors are incapable of understanding this nuanced art of teaching. Hence, there are moments when I fear that the consequences of the biometric system of attendance would be disastrous. Yes, like factory workers ,we would enter the campus at 9 am; and then, after mechanically completing the teaching process, we would order samosa and pakoda, look at some official files, wait for the lunch break; we would gossip, and see the rise and fall of the sharemarket.
Or, if the vice-chancellor wants, we would love to reduce ourselves into the role of data-providers: the attendance registrar of students, the projects applied for, the selfies taken at the moment of attending the surgical day celebration, and the bills for the money we have sent in zeroxing the course outline and the reading list. Yes, we would become ‘punctual’ and ‘efficient’. Let creativity diminish, and mediocrity prevail.
But, is it possible to resist this notorious practice of surveillance: a conspiracy against emancipatory education? My feeling is that most of us have already lost it. There could be two reasons:
First, we do not want to protest because the experience of an act of resistance is not like reading a paper at an ‘international’ conference; it means ‘risks’; and, as the deeply internalised middle class self-whispers, it is not a good idea.
Second, we are not very sure about our own moral and pedagogic strength – whether we are truly capable of living with creative freedom, and giving our best to our universities. We are not sure, whether through the art of self-discipline, we can unite responsibility and freedom.
With chronic self-doubt, how can we resist a system that is against the creative spirit of teaching and research?
Avijit Pathak is a professor of sociology at JNU.
