Bangalore: Just 4-6 hours of classroom teaching a week, rising instances of drug abuse, sex and drinking among students, indifference to plagiarism in student project reports and decline in serious research pursuit and academic rigour. This is the dismal state of affairs at Bangalore's National Law School of India University, one of India's premier institutes, as painted by the School Review Commission that assessed the 24-year-old school. Observing that NLSIU has moved away from the phase of "exploration and accomplishment'' to a "phase of diminution and dissatisfaction'', the commission says there is a drastic dilution of academic standards. "The rigorous work culture and singular commitment, the hallmark of NLSIU inthe first decade of its existence, is on the wane. The level of functioning is now far from expectations." The commission, appointed by the Chief Justice of India, was headed by former Supreme Court judge Justice K T Thomas and had professors Virendra Kumar and MP Singh as members. The CJI's office forwarded the report to the law school in May 2009. The recommendations, along with the action taken report by the law school, have been exclusively accessed by TOI. The faculty is clearly in the commission's crosshairs for its inequitable distribution of teaching work and mismatch in allocation of teaching subjects. "Some teachers, especially the young, have been assigned courses in which they hardly had any in-depth exposure. Cancellation of the scheduled class owing to non-availability of the teacher concerned at the last moment, has become a rather common practice," observes the report. The report states that law school teachers are "often ignorant (of) and mostly indifferent" to plagiarism in project reports submitted by students. Appointment of non-academic persons (retired district judge with no teaching experience) to handle academic tasks (adjunct faculty) and absence of a formal control mechanism to evaluate teachers and their working has drawn flak.


Courtesy - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Law-School-has-lowered-quality-says-CJI-committee/articleshow/7289201.cms