PT Policy Clarification
6. How does the institute plan to accommodate the extra students?
Prof Vasi (DD) acknowledged the following pressing points raised by the GSAA - . the inability of students to get in more companies during challenging economic conditions, a need for 200 extra PTs (those who had gone for foreign PTs last year), the need for a challenging work profile in Indian industries, the need for stipends and possible scrambles for false certificates in the end.
He gave an assurance that, this year, all faculty would be much more involved in getting PTs for students, either by asking ex-students or speaking to heads of industrial divisions. He was sure that the extra 200 PTs would be managed.
7. There are many students interested in pursuing research. Why then the ban on research institutes as well?
The institute's stand is that official PTs in research institutes will not be recognised, since a PT must include hands-on industrial experience.
8. Will the students be forced to take whatever comes their way?
The reasoning behind the policy was that one should be grounded in the basics of one's trade first, especially the more common areas. One could later go into niche areas. So there's no provision of an exception till now.
9. The expectations with which most people joined the institute, for the exposure which was to be offered, are not being met. What's your take on this? What is the institute's take on this?
As a student representative and a fellow student, my motive was and will always be to lay out the interests of the students in front of the institute functionaries and persuade them to reverse this change in policy. As I wasn't part of the rule-making committee last December, I believe the Institute's take on the soundness of this change in policy would be best answered by the institute functionaries themselves.
Writerspeak:
Note that the Deputy Director said, “If for whatever reason, we revoke this policy, we shall lose our credibility and shall suffer in the future both in terms of a negative image portrayal by the media and a weakening of industry-university relations leading to further problems in the future, eg. in placements.”
Two points are to be noted here.
One- This policy will be in place only for the current third-year batch. The fourth year batch had an effective free-for-all. The sophie batch has no compulsory PTs. It is only the current third-year batch which is at the knife’s edge.
Two, the loss of image talked about here in taking back this policy must be noted. Apparently, if we ask for favours from the industry, there would be no “harm to our image”, or this is what the Deputy Director’s statement suggests.
Volume XI