Unchain Students From Desks

Global rankings for 2025 have triggered fresh bouts of soul-searching within India's higher education sector.

- JOHN J KENNEDY

While explanations abound—from resource limitations to lack of internationalisation—one critical but under-recognised factor continues to undermine true educational excellence quietly: India's near-unchallenged obsession with prolonged, in-class direct teaching and rigid requirements for on-campus presence. This deep-seated attachment to the classroom as the central, even exclusive, site of learning is symptomatic of broader systemic problems, and urgently demands reflection.

The current controversy at the University of Delhi over the mandated 12-hour daily on-campus presence for students is both emblematic and alarming. Why do our institutions cling so stubbornly to the notion that more hours corralled in classrooms necessarily translates into better learning? And, more importantly, what do we lose by doing so, both as individuals and as a collective academic community aspiring towards global standards?

To understand this persistence, one must reach back to the origins of the 'factory model' of education, devised during colonial and industrial times to produce disciplined, predictable workers rather than intellectually-agile citizens. Indian academia has inherited not just the infrastructure but also the attitudes of this antiquated, control-centred approach. We have equated rigorous supervision with quality, time in class with learning, and discipline with genuine engagement.