Chief minister Lal Thanhawla sent a letter to Union human resources development minister Kapil Sibal on April 18 highlighting the plight of the students and asked for another year's time for adequate preparations, which was reportedly agreed upon by Sibal.
However, the state higher and technical education department officials are still determined to begin classes this year, said students and parents, expressing fear the haste would not only harm the students, but also cripple the first ever NIT in the state in its infancy.
"We dreamt of an institution that would be world class like the other NITs in the country with assured placement for our children, but the way top officials of the state higher and technical education department are handling things, we are afraid that our NIT would become a second class or even a third class institute," said Lalchhandama, father of a student.
Parents said there is nothing in the proposed classrooms except a few blackboards and tables in the rented buildings. Some 15 laboratories are yet to be set up and there would be no time for establishment of a mechanical engineering workshop either.
"The authorities said the building of the ICFAI University at Chaltlang locality in Aizawl would also be used. Though the ICFAI officials said they would vacate the building only in October this year, while the classes were proposed to commence from July," Lalchhandama said.
The faculty is yet to be recruited too, an advertisement issued in this regard saying faculty positions would be open throughout the current calendar year. Parents said the no.10 condition on faculty recruitment policy roster, which says if no suitable candidate is found for the post of professor or associate professor, the post shall be converted into associate professor or assistant professor of the same discipline, amounts to compromising the standard of the institute.
Out of the 20 NITs currently operating in the country, 17 were converted into NITs from regional engineering colleges enjoying a full-fledged infrastructure, while the proposed NIT in Mizoram, set up in accordance with the decision of the Union cabinet on September 18, 2009, would have to start from the scratch, for which Rs 250 crore was sanctioned by the Centre.
The Mizoram NIT, now functioning under its mentor VNIT, Nagpur, has 67 students in the first batch out of which 9 are from Mizoram. It was expected there would be around 157 students from this academic session.
The students, who recently inspected the proposed premises of the NIT campus in Aizawl, said no arrangement has been made till date for the accommodation of the teaching staff. Besides, the proposed classroom buildings at Chaltlang locality are too far from the erstwhile Saizahawla Boarding School at Tanhril village, outside Aizawl, which was selected to house the hostels.
While the state higher and technical education department said the faculty of VNIT, Nagpur, the mentor institution, would take classes in Aizawl when the session begins, the students argued it would be next to impossible. "Nagpur and Aizawl are many thousands of kilometers apart and there are no direct flights between the two cities. The absence of residential facilities for the faculty members and dearth of good hotel accommodation in Aizawl would make it impossible for faculty members to take classes regularly," a student said.
The centre has sanctioned five years as preparatory period for newly established NITs and urged the state chief minister Lal Thanhawla to appeal to the ministry of human resources development to postpone the shifting of NIT to Mizoram from VNIT Nagpur for at least a year, parents said. They accused top officials of the state higher and technical education department officials of deliberately ignoring the technical report of the officials, which advised against shifting the Mizoram NIT to Aizawl this year.
"If the Mizoram NIT is allowed to begin in haste and without proper planning and arrangements, it would have a low reputation and the future of the students would be spoiled with no opportunity for placements in reputed companies," parents warned.
0 comments:
Post a Comment