As four new National Institutes of Design (NIDs) await their birth, faculty and administrators in the lone-existing NID worry about the absence of staff in the new institutes in case they come up in quick succession.
The full-time faculty crunch at NID, Ahmedabad and it’s satellite campuses at Gandhinagar and Bangalore is nothing short of severe; there are roughly 62 full-time faculty in all the three campuses, and 265 visiting faculty. But the visiting faculty do not take full-semester courses; but work in a time-bound manner in which they have to stay on campus or take classes for as long as two weeks, according to NID Director, Professor Pradyumna Vyas.
Dinesh Korjan, an NID alumnus, who has been a visiting faculty for more than two decades, said, “The shortage is big and it’s nothing new.”
A few days ago, the institute floated an advertisement looking for design educators, but the effort did not instill much confidence, as a top administrator said on condition of anonymity. “I don’t think this will lead to anything much. There were very few takers even last time,” the official said.
Senior faculty members express worry as four new NIDs are expected to come up in the near future. Two weeks ago, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh laid the foundation for one of the new NIDs at Jorhat in Assam. Other NIDs are expected to come up in Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana. Each of these campuses are expected to have at least 1,900 square meters for faculty offices and housing, but no one knows yet who will work or live there.
The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), under which NID functions as an autonomous body, and which is charged with finding consultants to build these new NIDs, is concerned. In the terms of reference for consultants who plan to apply for the role of consultants in setting up these new NIDs, the Request for Proposal (RFP) document notes: “NID is facing a shortage of faculty at present. Opening of more NIDs will aggravate this shortage.”
Some faculty members have identified several problems: one being that the Faculty Development Programs (FDP) have attracted very few applicants, and among the ones who do attend it, very few actually go on to teach at the institute.
This could be because of several reasons: one being that designers seem largely uninterested in teaching, and even those who attend FDP, eventually end up working somewhere else in non-teaching positions. Korjan, recalled only five faculty members who had stayed on after completing the program.
Besides the salaries of faculty are lower compared to their counterparts at IITs and IIMs, who work under the Ministry of Human Resource Development, unlike design faculty at NID who work under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
Another reason is that faculty at IITs and IIMs are allowed to take up consultancy projects and supplement their income, but NID faculty have not been allowed the same until about two years ago when the Integrated Design Services (IDS) became operational. But the projects that come to IDS “are routed through a small, selected committee to the faculty. It isn’t very well-known. It isn’t very popular,” said two faculty members in separate interviews.
Last year, a senior faculty who has since retired, had filed an RTI application asking for the minutes of the committee’s meeting on the charge that details of its workings are not transparent enough. He had placed copies of the reply in the faculty lounge of all the three campuses.
Prof Vyas said 0 new faculty members were recruited last year, but added that faculty crunch will be a major problem if the four new NIDs come up in quick succession. “There will be a problem.” he said.
News Source: Indian Express
The full-time faculty crunch at NID, Ahmedabad and it’s satellite campuses at Gandhinagar and Bangalore is nothing short of severe; there are roughly 62 full-time faculty in all the three campuses, and 265 visiting faculty. But the visiting faculty do not take full-semester courses; but work in a time-bound manner in which they have to stay on campus or take classes for as long as two weeks, according to NID Director, Professor Pradyumna Vyas.
Dinesh Korjan, an NID alumnus, who has been a visiting faculty for more than two decades, said, “The shortage is big and it’s nothing new.”
A few days ago, the institute floated an advertisement looking for design educators, but the effort did not instill much confidence, as a top administrator said on condition of anonymity. “I don’t think this will lead to anything much. There were very few takers even last time,” the official said.
Senior faculty members express worry as four new NIDs are expected to come up in the near future. Two weeks ago, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh laid the foundation for one of the new NIDs at Jorhat in Assam. Other NIDs are expected to come up in Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana. Each of these campuses are expected to have at least 1,900 square meters for faculty offices and housing, but no one knows yet who will work or live there.
The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), under which NID functions as an autonomous body, and which is charged with finding consultants to build these new NIDs, is concerned. In the terms of reference for consultants who plan to apply for the role of consultants in setting up these new NIDs, the Request for Proposal (RFP) document notes: “NID is facing a shortage of faculty at present. Opening of more NIDs will aggravate this shortage.”
Some faculty members have identified several problems: one being that the Faculty Development Programs (FDP) have attracted very few applicants, and among the ones who do attend it, very few actually go on to teach at the institute.
This could be because of several reasons: one being that designers seem largely uninterested in teaching, and even those who attend FDP, eventually end up working somewhere else in non-teaching positions. Korjan, recalled only five faculty members who had stayed on after completing the program.
Besides the salaries of faculty are lower compared to their counterparts at IITs and IIMs, who work under the Ministry of Human Resource Development, unlike design faculty at NID who work under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
Another reason is that faculty at IITs and IIMs are allowed to take up consultancy projects and supplement their income, but NID faculty have not been allowed the same until about two years ago when the Integrated Design Services (IDS) became operational. But the projects that come to IDS “are routed through a small, selected committee to the faculty. It isn’t very well-known. It isn’t very popular,” said two faculty members in separate interviews.
Last year, a senior faculty who has since retired, had filed an RTI application asking for the minutes of the committee’s meeting on the charge that details of its workings are not transparent enough. He had placed copies of the reply in the faculty lounge of all the three campuses.
Prof Vyas said 0 new faculty members were recruited last year, but added that faculty crunch will be a major problem if the four new NIDs come up in quick succession. “There will be a problem.” he said.
News Source: Indian Express