Is this going to be DCE- DTU part-II? Are we going to suc-cumb to the same fate? Now that an official notice for the conversion of NSIT into a state university has been put up, does anybody out there think that it is too late to act? If yes, then think again!
The flashing notices in college, the newspaper articles, the mail from the DSW, the meeting held in the auditorium and the various facebook pages have all made us fully aware of this fact. In the past also, our institute had applied for the university status which could not be materialized but this time around, the demand has been voiced on stronger grounds since a similar proposition has been mentioned in the five year plan of the state government. In the recent times the Delhi government has granted university status to many institutes like DTU, IIIT, Ambedkar, G.G.S. IP Uni-versity and IGIT with the aim of making Delhi an educa-tional hub. Indirectly the Govt. wants to project to the com-mon man that during their tenure, they have established a number of universities and thus, disregarding the quality they are targeting only on the quantity to gain vote bank. The conversion would result in recruitment of faculty, ad-ministrative staff and students on the basis of donation and approach. University will be under the influence of local MLAs and MPs which will lead to deterioration in the qual-ity of education as seen in the DTU case – 90 teachers were recruited in just one day.
The first thought this conversion brings to our mind is los-ing the brand name Delhi University on which we all bank upon, while applying to the universities abroad. Many re-puted multinational companies know our college due to the aura of DU. The conversion will directly thrash the reputa-tion our college built up over the past 20 years and creating a new brand would mean going back in time. Talking about the effects, as shown through the RTI filed by the students, it is evident that this planned propaganda will adversely impact the placements as the industries prefer central uni-versity over a state university. This can be seen in the con-version of DCE to DTU as many industries (like CDOT, PGCIL, etc), PSU‘s and foreign universities couldn‘t asso-ciate with the new name of the institute. The students of DTU have claimed the same and brought out their losses in the High Court of Delhi. The conversion of DCE into DTU has been a failure as Delhi School of Management (Management dept. of DTU) does not lie even in the top 20 management schools in the N.C.R. region. The conversion of NSIT on the same lines may put our future on stake as well.
Becoming a state university would render ultimate control over the administration to NSIT which is presently laid in the hands of Faculty of Technology (FOT) under DU. It is believed that the issues pertaining to the up gradation of syllabus and late result compilation would be addressed without much delay. The funding given to the institute as a state university would improve and hence the demand for infrastructural growth and the advent of new courses would finally be realized. However the budget of 2007-08 shows that we have sufficient funds available for the bet-terment of our infrastructure but they haven’t been put upto any good use till now, so can we actually rest being assured on such hollow promises? Moreover the RTI filed by Save NSIT regarding result compilation showed that the whole process should not take more than 3 months but it gets delayed on the part of the college. All the new de-velopments sound fancy but thinking about their imple-mentation does make a person weary.
The ‗Save NSIT‘ has been making consistent efforts to put forward the students point of view through various meet-ings with the DSW, Principal Secretary, Department of Training and Technical Education, Govt. of N.C.T. of Delhi, and the Chief Minister Sheila Dixit. The students and the alumni group have strongly brought out the fact that we are strictly against the eradication of Central char-acter of the institute due to which it certainly enjoys extra privileges over other institutes. NSIT is administratively autonomous and if academic autonomy is supposed to be the prime reason for the changeover, then we would ap-preciate if NSIT is upgraded to an NIT or IIT, thereby maintaining the central character and retaining the tag of an ―Institute of National Importance‖ while achieving full autonomy. Alternatively, the complete control (academic as well as administrative) could be passed on to Delhi University. The support from students is well evident from the signatures gathered in excess of a thousand. With dedi-cated support from the alumni group Save NSIT is trying in every possible way to overrule the decision. Finally we all need to realize that there is still a lot of hope in our case if we all stand united and act efficiently as the proc-ess is in the initial stages as compared to DCE where the protests were held after the conversion was finalized. But are we ready for this fight? This is our college and we are responsible for everything that happens here. Hence the decision lies with us, we can either sit silently, or walk that extra mile and raise out our voices.
“NSIT has been seeking the status of deemed university for a decade now. NSIT (as DIT) was conceived to eventually become a Deemed-to-be University as early as in 1986 when it was granted administrative autonomy. Institute had applied for the grant of Deemed-University status as DIT in 1995 and as NSIT in 2001-2002. During 2001-2002, both UGC and AICTE had made strong recommendations for grant of University status to NSIT. Only Delhi Govt was not willing to sacrifice 85% reservation to Delhites.” – Mail Today (27th January)
To join and show your support for Save NSIT, visit their facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/savensit
Kapil Sibal bringing out the fact that ―India have a policy to convert our institutes of higher education into deemed university and make them go out of “state control”‖ in this video.
