The Great Regulatory Dilemma

Last week, my alma mater, IIT(ISM) Dhanbad, grabbed the attention of netizens when it abolished the mandatory attendance requirement for students on attending lectures. With this change, students are free to attend or skip classes as per their discretion. I relate this development to the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Bill, 2025 recently passed in the Parliament which has banned all forms of ‘online money games’. In my view, these two developments reflect the opposite extremes of the spectrum of regulatory interventions that administrators (whether of an academic institution or a country) adopt in dealing with various issues.

Proponents of individual freedom argue that an adult individual must be allowed to exercise choice over the activities (s)he wants to pursue; that an adult can very well decide on when and where to attend classes, play games, spend money, etc. and that the administrators should shed their paternalistic compulsion of forcing individuals into bending to their style of thinking. This sounds right, especially to the receivers of the restrictions, but to the administrators, it represents just one side of the never-ending dilemma of whether to regulate or not.

Representational image generated with ChatGPT

In my view, there can be three primary reasons why administrators world over feel the need to regulate any system: to protect a set of participants of a system that is fraught with asymmetry of information and bargaining power; to curtail the tendency of participants to exhibit unreasonable excessiveness if left unchecked; and to ensure orderly functioning of the system as a whole. In other words, among other concerns, regulations are required when the participants of a system do not seem to be mature enough to self-regulate and observe discipline.

Let’s take the case of online money games. A lure of quick money based on perceived expertise in cricket, which a typical Indian youth thinks he possesses by birth, is potentially irresistible in a country with low income and high aspirations. The appeal of such ‘side income’ sometimes engulfs the entire household savings and in worst cases, borrowings from formal and informal sources. Such financial risks, when not followed by anticipated returns, generally have tragic consequences. When an avenue for ‘gaming’ quietly turns into a source of addiction, gambling and financial loss, and the participants experience inability to gain control over the same (read lack of self-regulation and discipline), it is perhaps time for the administrator to step in. A press release issued by the government says that the legislation is designed to curb addiction, financial ruin and social distress caused by predatory gaming platforms that thrive on misleading promises of quick wealth. Had the government decided to maintain the status quo by citing any well-reasoned argument, it would have been subjected to criticism for failure of its duty to protect the citizens, reflecting the moral responsibility imposed on the administrators when they adopt a laissez-faire approach.

Now, let’s look at the withdrawal of the minimum attendance requirement for students. In a country where a minimum of 75% attendance in classes is a baseline for engineering programs, a zero per cent attendance policy is no less than a boon. A quick stroll through the comments on the IIT's development on any social media platform shows that the step has been welcomed with wide support. With the entire curriculum available on the internet and further spoon-fed by the new age Large Language Models (read AI), there is little value addition that students seem to find in classes (of course, the guidance provided by a teacher cannot be replaced by machines completely, but that's a topic for some other day). Further, as engineering students generally find themselves studying only at the end of the semesters despite attending classes, they now have all the time for themselves to engage in various activities like preparation for internship/ placement/ competitive exams, pursuing personal projects/ startups, excelling in extracurriculars, etc.

And yet, all that glitters is seldom gold. With students now completely accountable for their academic and overall performance, this well-intended policy can also have certain fatal consequences. Corporate employees know how the illusion of “extra-time” on weekends breaks when the weekends actually arrive. The availability of a plethora of social media and OTT platforms designed with an intent to snatch every possible second from humans, coupled with access to ultra-low cost data, forms a devil that can make any such policy counter-productive. The risks are further exacerbated by the presence of other potentially addictive avenues like online gaming and substance abuse, especially for youth in their teens and post-teens. All in all, the outcomes of this experiment will be worth seeing. Though on a broader level, it is expected that good sense shall prevail and most, if not all, students shall pass the test of (abundance of) time put forth by the new policy.

It goes without saying that the biggest skill of today’s era is self-control and awareness. If one is mindful of his actions and has the capability to let go of short-term impulses for longer-term ambitions, all the technological advances available today shall bend to his will. If not, then he shall join all the others in experiencing the deterioration of the human race which is facing diminishing attention spans, increasing general dissatisfaction and whatnot. May the force (of mindfulness) be with all!

 ___________________

Written by a human.

Assisted by AI.