FTII gets Fewer Applications this year, Students Blame Fee Hike
- To attract more applicants even from smaller centres of the country, FTII organised various seminars and workshops in more than 15 towns and cities.
- However, due to the fee hike in application fees, there was a steep decline in the number of applications.
Increase in the application fees of the two premier institutes in film and visual arts- Film and Television Institute of India Pune and Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute Kolkata has resulted in the decline in the numbers of application.
A Joint Entrance Test (JET) was conducted for admissions to the two institutes for the first time. These institutes function under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. To attract more applicants even from smaller centres of the country, FTII organised various seminars and workshops in more than 15 towns and cities. Candidates during the workshops were informed about the courses offered by the institutes and their admission process.
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Two new examination centres one in Port Blair and one in Srinagar were introduced for the admission test. However, all the efforts taken by the Ministry towards the JET did not yield a good result. As a total of 5,293 admission applications were received for the 12 programmes at SRFTI and 11 programme at FTII which is comparatively less as compared to the figures from last year. This year, despite conducting applications for 10 courses and extending registration by a week did not help in the increase of applications.
As per the reports, some of the JET centres had to be cancelled because of lack of minimum 20 candidates. 26 centres were planned for the entrance test but it took place only at 21. Even though the administration is not admitting to the fact, but the hike in the application fee is the reason behind the downfall in the number of applications. Till last year, the application fee of the two wings was Rs. 4,000 and candidates were eligible to be considered by any of the two institutions. But from this year application fee had gone up to Rs.8,000 (both television and film courses).
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Bhupendra Kainthola FTII Director said that it is for the first in several years that the number of applicants crossed 5,000. Till last year, candidates applied separately to each institute.