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A large majority of senior undergraduate students of the University of Madras are in favour of retaining the convocation and a large proportion of the students are against the conferring of honorary degrees on political leaders.

These are some of the preliminary findings of a survey conducted last November by the Department of Statistics of the Madras Christian College. The survey collected information from over 700 students of the final year B.A., B.Sc. and B.Com. classes of all colleges of the University of Madras.

Two-thirds of the students are against abolition of convocations as against a mere one-fifth who want the convocation abolished. There is some difference in attitude towards abolition of convocation between men and women students. Only 15 per cent of the women want the convocation abolished in contrast to 21 per cent of men.

It was found from the survey that women students, on the average, come from better educated families compared to men. For example, only one-third of the women are first generation graduates, whereas two-thirds of the men are the first to get college education in their families. One may conclude that only in the better educated families, girls are sent for college education. Among women it is found that those whose fathers do not hold a college degree, are more in favour of retaining the convocation.

What about men? About three-fifths of the men students come from homes where the father does not have even a school final certificate. However, whether they are from highly educated families or illiterate families, their attitude towards convocation is the same. Sixty-five per cent are for convocation, 21 per cent for abolition and the others have no comments.

Honorary Degrees for Political Leaders

Who has better support from students if the University of Madras were to confer honorary degrees on political leaders? Mrs Indira Gandhi gets most support and Mr Kamaraj least. Cho gets more support than our Chief Minister. One of the interesting findings of the survey is the political innocence or impartiality of the students in this matter. Even though only about 30 per cent of the students either work for or sympathize with Congress(R), more than 40 per cent are in favour of Mrs Gandhi being given a doctorate by the University of Madras. What is interesting is that on the average a higher proportion of men support Mrs Gandhi compared to women. However about one-fourth of the students are against the award of an honorary degree to Mrs Gandhi and the others have no comments.

Only about 7 per cent of the students are for conferring a degree on Mr Kamaraj even though 37 per cent of the students claim to be workers or sympathizers of Congress(O). If students had a strong political bias in the matter, one would expect all the supporters of Mr Kamaraj to support Cho. However, out of 12 women who support Mr Kamaraj only 2 support Cho. Over 40 per cent of the students are opposed to Mr Kamaraj getting a degree.

Next to Mrs Gandhi, it is Cho who gets the support of students. More than one-fifth of the students are for and about 35 per cent against the award of an honorary degree to Cho. About 40 per cent have no comments.

More than two-fifths of men and one-third of women are against the conferring of a doctorate on our Chief Minister. Compared to Cho fewer people support the Chief Minister for the degree. Thirteen per cent of men and 16 per cent of women are for the Chief Minister even though about 30 per cent of men and 20 per cent of women claim to work for or sympathize with the DMK.

None of the leaders get the support of the majority of students and we have evidence to show that there is a strong core of students who are generally opposed to the conferring of honorary degrees on any of the political leaders mentioned. Their judgment does not have much party bias.

The survey was conducted with financial assistance from the University Grants Commission before Madras University took the decision to modify the present system of convocation but after the conferring of an honorary degree on the Chief Minister by the Annamalai University.