[NewstrackIndia] UGC sets guidelines to eliminate ragging phobia

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It's high time now that the fresher avoid going to their respective institutions for the first few weeks of admission. As the new academic session is about to begin, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has issued a set of proclamations of the code of conduct to be followed by the educational institutions.

The ragging phobia is so severe that a number of freshers, especially girls, experience a kind of trauma regarding the issue.

Many students, who are introvert in nature or are reluctant to open up or 'correspond socially' to their immediate environment, suffer it as an assault on their self-respect. In many institutions, the 'necessary ragging procedure' is so severe that the victims develop a kind of fear of the Temples of Education.

Ragging cases reported in the past few years involved fiercely obscure games, cheap tasks and unhealthy tantrums being played upon by the senior students who had experienced a similar treatment by their own seniors and who now seek a certain pleasure in playing vigorously innovative tricks with the fresher. The psychologists term it as a “sadistic pleasure” which finds outlet in this behaviour of the students originated from their own maltreatment at the hands of the others.

The UGC commission has thus issued some new proclamations that are headed towards bringing a ray of hope for the disappointed section. It plans to design a still stricter punishment for the unpardonable offence. The commission asks all the educational institutions in India to mention the punishment for ragging in their prospectus and brochures. Apart from the ragging cases dealt with during the previous year, it asks for the mention of the punishment meted out to the guilty students as well.

The UGC has also directed the institutions to have an anti-ragging cell, where the students can complain and report their ragging cases.

The institutions have been asked to provide special security to the students coming from rural areas or socially backward communities as according to a social profile drawn by the Raghavan community, such students are more likely to fall victim to the rogues.

As per the Coalition to Uproot Ragging from Education(CURA), 52 cases have been reported between May and September 2007, including three suicide and three attempted suicide cases, which are suspected to be a consequence of the harassment faced during ragging. This increase in the “pleasurable Offence” despite Supreme Court ban has resulted in the increased security and number of cops around the educational institutions. Let’s see if the strategies that sound so good, work out to bear fruits....