Integrating Death Management Into India’s Engineering & Management Curriculum

Death is an unpredictable event. We hardly think about it. Yet many aspects of it need careful attention. What is the meaning of death? Is my life until death meaningful? How do I reduce waste of time? Do I have a working knowledge of insurance? How do I plan for succession? What do I do when the death of others occurs near me? Do I owe any responsibility for the dead?

These are a few sample illustrative questions that people in the age group 17-22 years usually don’t get to think about. It is quite obvious that provoking young minds to think about these questions early in their education will reap rich benefits not only for the students but also their stakeholders including parents and society.

Interestingly, engineering or management schools rarely have a course on death management in their curriculum. If there are such schools, then those are exceptions from which others should pick a leaf. It is incorrect to say that the course on death isn’t being taught elsewhere. A course on death is usually taught in the curriculum of philosophy, medicine or law departments. However, such a course, though not interdisciplinary, is usually not mentioned in the curriculum of engineering and management schools.

The focus of a course on death management should be interdisciplinary, thought-provoking and practical. At the end of the course, students should be able to describe the meaning of death, show a positive attitude towards meaningful use of life, plan how to reduce waste of time, demonstrate a working knowledge of insurance, plan for succession, judge what to do when others die near them and explain the responsibility that they owe for the dead - be it near and dear ones or cult figures. The learning objectives suggested above may not be exhaustive, but they serve as a good starting point.

The learning in the course will matter to young students because it will equip them to deal with the event of death proactively. The course shall also serve as a foundation for students to deepen their academic interest in the subject or enter jobs in allied industries. Students shall experience assignments in the course to support learning of skills. Class formats shall include lectures and discussions. The lecture shall support education of concepts and the discussion shall support attitude development. The course shall take an interwoven learning approach to preparing students for an unpredictable world. There should be no prerequisites to this course.

The option of having such a course self-taught is a bad idea especially because, as said earlier, the unpredictable event of death hardly crosses the minds of young individuals. It would be good if all engineering and management schools institute a course on death management that will cultivate their students' relevant KASH (knowledge, attitude, skill, habit). Such a course can be taught initially as an elective course and then elevated as a mandatory course or launched initially as a required course.

Some of the immediate perils that may be avoided by having a course on death management in the curriculum include suicidal deaths in engineering and management schools and deaths due to bad driving. Of course, the objectives of such courses will yield benefits far beyond addressing immediate issues. They will contribute to building clear-headed and responsible individuals in society who can take better care of themselves, their families and others.

Jayasankar Ramanathan

Guest Author Jayasankar Ramanathan, Associate Professor, Marketing, IFMR Graduate School of Business, Krea University