Lockdown woes: This former college HoD now sells murukku
...and he is not alone. Hit hard by poor enrollment rate and Covid, while also having to double-up as salesmen, many college teachers have gone back to their traditional trades
Published: 26th June 2020 07:06 AM
When the Covid pandemic struck, Maheshwaran was sent on “admission leave”.
Express News Service
CHENNAI: In a nondescript little house in Neyveli sits T Maheshwaran, overseeing his murukku business. Like the convoluted twists and turns in the greasy snack being packed for sales, Maheshwaran’s professional life too has taken drastic turns down a slippery slope. Till February this year, Maheshwaran was the head of the computer science department of an engineering college in Coimbatore -- for all of six years. When the Covid pandemic struck, Maheshwaran was sent on “admission leave”.Illustration : Amit Bandre
What is admission leave? “If I bring five admissions, I can have my job back. Else, it’s considered I have been fired,” he says. “I received my last salary in February. For the last 3-4 months, I am struggling to pay my loans and dues.” Maheshwaran applied to other colleges. He got a few offers too, but with riders. “I could have the job if I brought 3-4 new admissions, I was told. The basic salary they promised was Rs 10,000. The rest would depend on the number of admissions I can make.” Maheshwaran decided enough was enough. “I am not going to go scout for students. I am quitting teaching good.
Now, I think I will focus on the murukku business. Even if the going gets tough, I will not go back.” Maheshwaran is not alone in this crisis. Many private engineering college teachers --- especially those coming from rural backgrounds, who spent 15-16 years of their life preparing for a career in academics to make a difference in the lives of students --- have gone back to traditional businesses such as rearing cattle and making choir ropes.
The gradual decay in the once-booming low-cost private technical education model in Tamil Nadu --- where teachers had to double up as marketing executives and salespersons --- has been accelerated by the virus. Express spoke with three teachers from engineering colleges across the State, who claim technical knowledge and academic skills are no more the primary requirement for a lecturer’s job. In Maheshwaran’s case, it was his wife’s unexplored skill-set that helped him find an alternative career path.
“Stuck at home during the lockdown, she made a variety of murukku as they do it in her hometown Tiruchendur. I realised this kind of snack is not available in Neyveli. Also, shops were not getting stock of fresh snacks due to the lockdown. I saw space in the market, and decided to explore it.” Today, Maheshwaran sells four kilograms of the snack every day to shops in his neighbourhood. He makes Rs 800 per day. An expansion is on the cards soon, hints Maheshwaran.
Greener Pastures
In the quaint coastal hamlet of Colachel in Kanniyakumari, Vincent* now spends his days with seven bulls and 24 goats. In between, he finds time to log on to Facebook, to answer doubts of his students -- rather, former students. After teaching mechanical engineering for 14 years, Vincent is now rearing cattle for a living. “My students still reach out to me when they have doubts,” he says with a sense of pride. “I miss them. I wish I would go back to teaching again.” Vincent was tired of working in a college, but not of teaching.
His college management and he shared very different ideas about academics. “They were only concerned about money. I wanted my students to understand engineering in the practical sense. This profession needs committed teachers. Those who are passionate about it.” Vincent says he quit because he was focussing on practical learning while the college insisted that he helps his students score more. “In mechanical engineering, practical skills are as important as theory. So, my classes were very hands-on. But, the management insisted I focus on theory to help students score more.
Last June, I decided I cannot continue like this and quit my job.” He was hoping to find a job elsewhere, in a college that was practical about its learning outcomes. “Such a college does not exist. I realised that,” he says with a defeated smile. “Still, I don’t want to give up on teaching.” Cattle rearing is his father’s trade. Now, with no other income coming, he depends on it to feed his family. “My wife is a junior research fellow. Even she has not received her stipend since beginning of the lockdown.” Vincent’s colleague and friend David* is also going through a similar change in career. David has restarted a trade that his family had been at for decades, till his 102-year-old grandfather passed away five years back.
Learning the ropes
The coconut fibre stacked up around the shed keeps the summer heat at bay inside David’s workplace. Unsure if he would get his teaching job back after the pandemic abates, David has taken up his grandfather’s coir business. “I taught for over six years, and all of a sudden my salary stopped coming in February,” says David. The business had been leased out to a third party after David’s grandfather died. “Getting back into business during the lockdown was not easy. But, it was the only means of income I could think of,” he says.
David’s father leased out the business as his son wanted to take up teaching. Now, the choice is between pursuing his passion and feeding his family. “We decided to clean up the equipment and get going. We are making ropes, brooms, and ornamental coconut shells. David too wants to return to teaching, but he fears it may not be possible in the near future. India has ambitious plans for its ‘near future’ --- which includes a technological boost to business, education, and healthcare. At the southern tip of this future India is an ironic contradiction in the form of these teachers -- who after fighting against social odds to escape the drudgery of ancestral trade are now slipping back into the quagmire. (* names changed)
‘Show me the money’
Many colleges have allegedly been forcing faculty to double up as marketing executives and salespersons. Maheshwaran, who was HoD of computer science department of an engineering college, was told to bring in five students or consider himself fired
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