India, Maharashtra, vijay kumbhar, News, Governance, RTI, Transparency, Civic Issues, Real Estate: FTII row - Khan committee blames nexus between students, alumni, external faculty for entire mess

The majority of contract/external faculty who happen to be alumni of the institute as well as some other alumni who frequently visit and stay in the campus, they fuel the students without any responsibility towards orderly conduct of courses and passing out of students. The academic faculty keeps on changing its stand, this kind of wavering stand on the part of the faculty only aggravates the situation, putting extraordinary pressure on the present Director. These are some of the observations drawn by S M Khan committee that was appointed to assess the ground status of Film and television Institute of India ( FTII).

The committee also expected contract faculty to restrict themselves to academic activities only rather than indulging in activities which are not academic in nature and are beyond their scope of work. It asked the administration of the Institute to seriously look into the behavior of the contract faculty.

If we look at the submissions made before the khan committee & it’s observations, some questions arise in mind i.e. who are these students with whom Government is holding talks? What is their locus standi? Are they the only stake holders or well wishers of the institute? How come mere 3-4 defaulter students are being allowed to decide future of the FTII., why government is not taking action against the students , faculty , staff who have duped institute for lacs of rupees? . Why government didn’t question director of FTII for not lodging complaint of contempt of national anthem against students? . Present students demands are to expel or throw out everything that they don't want or like, then instead of succumbing to that why don't government throw these students out ?

Khan Committee Report

While deposing before this committee some members alleged that for some student’s participation in the strike is a way of survival. Not all students are on strike and a group of few dominate the others. Students are virtually running the institute encroaching even on the administration’s domain. Over the past few years, the entire decision-making process in the Academic Council has been taken over by the students. The guest contract faculty freely mixes with students in “all their activities” and there is no control over production schedule or adherence of academic discipline. Contract faculty [who happen to be ex-students] instead of enforcing strict academic discipline, they accommodated all requests of the students in violation of norms.

Some staff members said that although the reason behind the delay in completing students projects was being told the infrastructure, this was not the main issue. The existing infrastructure is sufficient if schedules are strictly followed and all exercises are completed on time. There were always excuses resulting in exercises being re-scheduled which had a cascading effect on subsequent groups.

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There were also allegation of the students having long practice of a method called “interrogation technique" which is passed on by seniors to juniors and also “FTII Anthem” being sung by the students which is full of vulgar words. Some members also deposed that although the TV students are in favor of continuing their studies since a majority are staying in hostels, they are to toe the line of others.

Some members even suspected that the students follow a "secret cult" and alleged that use of abusive language, liquor & drugs by students was common and number of dignitaries were humiliated in the institute by them.

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Students were not clear on their stand while deposing before the committee. On a speciﬁc query about the decisions of Academic Council meetings by committee, one of the student stated that the AC in its 72nd meeting gave time to some students to complete the project. However, when he was asked to show the relevant paper, it was the agenda paper for the meeting which mentioned this item as one of the agenda. The student was told that the minutes of the meeting do not show any such decision. When asked about the final notice of December 2014, for taking over of the projects by the institute and notice for vacation of hostel, the students did not give any clear reply and stated that there were many notices and they were not given serious note of as a tradition in FTII.

The students requested for the matter that was not within the domain of committee, administration or even minister. They asked the casual (contract) labourers may not be stopped from work as they are working in the institute for a long time and they are being penalized for no fault of theirs.

The alumni stated that they stand by the students with respect to their core demands. They also mentioned about the inclusion of some members in the Society. When asked about the various AC decisions and the subsequent notices, they had no clear answer and only stated that this was not the opportune time. They ﬁnally requested for withdrawal of FIRs against the students and address their core demands.

The Former Director (Shri D. J. Narain) was requested to submit a Report on the status of the 2008 batch .following points emerged from his report-

a) The reasons for delay of ﬁnal year projects were primarily due to non- submission of scripts (from students) . Special workshops were also conducted for this purpose.

b) Infrastructure was not an issue and additional infrastructure was made available to enable both 2008 and 2009 Batch to undertake their projects. While 2009 completed, 2008 is still in the campus. No preference was given to any Batch over the other.

c) Director did not interfere with any academic decision. These decisions were taken in meetings where the faculty participated and in the academic Council meetings.

d) The assessment of 2008 batch is legitimate. There are instances when the assessment was made on ‘as is where is’ basis including the second year of 2008 Batch.

The committee also considered previous committee reports that were constituted under similar circumstances. There are a number of places in the report where the behavior of the students and conduct of the faculty were highlighted.

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After taking into considerations, all the stake holders' views the committee further observed that the unfortunate incidents that led to the lodging of FIR were due to the constant shifting of stand by the faculty. Earlier HoDs unanimously agreed with the proposal to assess the projects of 2008 on “as is where is’ basis however while interacting with the Committee they stated that this was not an opportune time to do the assessment. Another clear example was when they spoke to the Committee; they put the entire blame on the previous Management including the former Director. However, subsequently they “clariﬁed” that everybody should be responsible for academic delays. Committee also noted that all the documentation from 2013 onward in this regard had been by consent and under the signature of the faculty. Committee also noted that faculty may be changing its stand frequently due to populism or intimidation.

Committee also put the onus of delay in projects on students it observed that the Academic Council meeting minutes, the notices issued thereafter and the Report of the former Director clearly indicate that the reasons for delay for completion of the 2008 Batch are attributable to the students

Saturday, October 3, 2015

FTII row - Khan committee blames nexus between students, alumni, external faculty for entire mess

Khan Committee Report

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