On the first day of your college, if you see a muscular man (usually with a stick or a piece of rubber or plastic pipe in his hand) standing at the college gate, don’t be confused.

He is your discipline In-charge (DI). He is the person who will monitor your activities and discipline you during your stay in the college.

Most of the colleges in Kathmandu have DI’s, who are hired for maintaining the discipline of students. These DI’s are often muscular men who frighten students with their physique.

Some are bouncers who, at night, work in restaurants, dance bars and nightclubs, helping to stop drinking brawls and other unwanted tensions. Barring some few cases, most of these people are illiterate or semi literate, and are rarely friendly to students.

Early in the morning they stand at the college gate screening every individual student about whether or not he/she is in proper college uniform, with fingernails properly manicured, hair trimmed short (for boys) and many other things.

If not up to the mark, you are not going to be spared.

If your hair is a few millimeters longer than they want it to be, they have got scissors in their hands. No matter what you say and how you try to plead to them that you will manage to have it cut the next day, they are not going to listen to you. They cut your hair.

You may be regular and punctual on the other days but if you happen to come late just one day, they don’t spare you. You may have a genuine reason for your coming late, but it does not work.

You have to face the punishment, which is often harsh and humiliating.

They are rarely polite to students. Many of them don’t even use decent language. It seems as if they have no soft corner in their heart. They often address students in disrespectful ways.

Some are heard using abusive and derogatory words, which modern day students are not exposed to even at home and in their surroundings.

They never counsel students positively to improve their behavior. Instead, they provoke students by being harsh and indecent to them.

In fact, we don’t need DI’s in colleges if we view discipline with a new perspective. We can build a well functioning system, which automatically trains an individual to behave in the way we want.

There are many colleges which have been doing well without DI’s. We never hear anything about the misbehavior of students in these colleges.