Students cry foul over IISc department’s weekly 50 hours rule

AYoung attending insurance at a section of the prestigious amerind Institute of Science, Bengaluru, requires 200 MTech and first-year PhD students to spend at least 50 hours a week in departmental labs, with senior PhD scholars expected to match their advisors’ 70–80-hour a week schedules, documents seen by HT show.Students at the Department of Electronic Systems Engineering (ESE), who currently have no specified working hours and just need to mark attendance twice in a day, have called the policy an attempt to bring “corporate culture” of counting hours into academia, raising health, privacy, and surveillance concerns. The policy was introduced by department chair Mayank Shrivastava in an October 2 email.On October 14, the IISc Students Council submitted a petition to IISc director demanding the withdrawal of the policy, said the student council petition, a copy of which has been seen by HT. The students said that new policy that requires working 14–16 hours every day would leave no time for rest or social life and “could lead to a rise in suicides.”However, the department began tracking attendance in pilot mode from October 16, with full implementation slated for November 1, said one of the students, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The system uses Radio-Frequency IDentification (RFID)-based access cards and facial recognition devices installed at department entry points to monitor lab hours. Students now fear the new attendance process may extend institute-wide, after IISc on October 9 floated a tender for 7,000 access cards, according to the tender, a copy of which has been seen by HT.IISc had not yet responded to queries from HT on this matter as of going to print.In his October 2 email, Professor Shrivastava said the new attendance and parking system was introduced in response to requests for flexibility, aiming to make attendance tracking “transparent, efficient, and fair” while ensuring safety and security within the department.Shrivastava outlined the expected weekly presence for all members of the department — 40 hours for permanent and project staff, and at least 50 hours for M.Tech and first-year Ph.D. Students. Senior Ph.D. Scholars are expected to match their advisors’ 70–80-hour work weeks, though officially a minimum of 50 hours will be recorded. In a note on October 4, Shrivastava said, “Our recent analysis clearly indicates that accountability among students has been lacking. A majority are not visiting the department during afternoon hours, and our laboratories are often found empty by evening…In a research environment like ours, such disengagement is not sustainable.”In a survey by the IISc Students’ Council (October 4–7), 97% of 110 ESE students who participated said mandatory working hours are unhelpful, and 96% said they cause stress or hinder academics.