IIT Bombay suicide: crime and punishment

The debates on TV and in other places are along predictable lines and pretty sterile.

If a professor finds a student is cheating, is that a crime?

Is it right to invoke the SC/ST act just because an SC student is involved?

How can IITs maintain their standards if they cannot enforce academic integrity?

We need to be clear that the issue is not cheating but how an institution responds to it.

Cheating in exams clearly is not on- it is unfair to those who  are not cheating. So the issue is not whether the professor was right in intervening when he found somebody was using his mobile (assuming for the moment that is what happened, since the matter is under investigation). The issue is: How do you respond to acts of cheating? 

At IITs and IIMs in general, faculty tend to be behave as though copying or plagiarism are the ultimate crime worthy of capital punishment.

Sorry, no. There are much bigger sins in this world than cheating in exams. And the answer to cheating is not to act in ways that would ruin a student's career or life. Some deterrence is required. If it is a major exam (such as the end term), perhaps an F grade may be  appropriate. For a 10-mark in-term quiz, you may mark down the student's grade by one or two notches.

But that's not how the system responds. Students are often told to repeat a semester. They may face suspension for a year (which, it is alleged, was the threat made to the IIT Bombay student). Or you may face expulsion from the Institute), which could means years of wasted time and money and utter devastation.

At IIMA, where I taught for more than two decades, I was taken aback at the sheer fury that faculty displayed when instances of cheating came to light. Many would howl for the severest punishment to be meted out. In one pathetic case, the mother of the student facing expulsion fell at the feet of the Programme Chair and begged forgiveness- she was asked to leave the room and the Institute went ahead with the punishment.

I found it difficult to digest faculty claims of uncompromising adherence to principle. The same concern for principle was notably absent where those above were involved, say, the director or even senior colleagues. Student  cheating was a petty transgression compared to the colossal violations perpetrated by those in positions of authority. Faculty's attitude towards these violations was one of benign indifference. 

So don't tell me about academic integrity. Academic integrity applies not just to students but to everybody in the system. It is just one aspect of institutional integrity. Show your adherence to scruple with respect to all violations of norms, not just violations on the part of students. Otherwise, what you are doing is nothing more than cheap bullying and abuse of power.

This morning, I saw a note by S H Patil, a distinguished professor of Physics at IIT Bombay, who taught me when I was a student there. He says he carried out an experiment with examinations. He would give open book exams with no time limit- you could take ten minutes or ten hours to finish them. At the end of the day, the answer sheets were to be dropped off at his office. He would tell students he expected them to observe norms of fair play. His experiment worked wonderfully except in a couple of cases. In those cases, he simply spoke to the students and reminded them of basic principles.

That is the way to go. Repose trust in students, try to develop a peer culture  of enforcement and overlook or respond mildly to the occasional transgression. Cheating in exams is not such a big crime that one has to pay for it with one's life. 

Post-script: IIT B has set up a ten member committee, including student representatives, to look into the incident. The press report says the Institute has shared the composition of the committee with the Ministry and awaits its approval. Clearly, the government has waved the danda at the Institute. The government understands that an internal committee appointed by the director would have little credibility.