The appointment of Mr. Anupam Kher as the Chairman of Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) has not led to any contradictions yet. It seems that FTII students are happy with the appointment.
However, since FTII has been facing major issues and problems, students’ association of FTII decided to bring nine key issues to the notice of Mr. Anupam Kher. Mr. Gajendra Chauhan, former Chairman of FTII was unable to resolve all the issues during his tenure .
Students’ associated prepared an open letter in which they detailed the nine key issues. The open letter was posted on FTII Wisdom Tree’s Facebook page on October 12, 2017.
According to the open letter, students of FTII were of the opinion that the premier film and television institute is slowly transforming into a commercial institute by introducing crash courses for generation of funds. The students pointed the recent short-term/ crash course launched by FTII in ‘Fiction Writing for Television’. The premier institute has fixed Rs. 20,000 as the course fee, which is very expensive. Not all the sections of society could bear the exorbitant fee for short-term courses.
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Students further claimed that FTII is a government institution. It is the responsibility of this premier institute to provide education to students from all sections of society. However, FTII has been driven by only one motive, i.e., funds generation.
Adding further, students indicated that the development of infrastructure and repair equipment is the most important task that FTII has to take up. Students are not able to complete the project works on time due to the poor infrastructural facilities and equipment. Instead of spending a lavish amount of money for conducting events like Open Day and Foundation Day, the institute could concentrate on developing facilities.
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Students also indicated that FTII is not providing enough resources to finish the projects on time because of which they are forced to sign an undertaking to finish courses on time.
Adding further, students pointed that they have problems with the new syllabus. Workshops and classes are being cut down from the syllabus during the course of the semester. The new syllabus is creating a lot of confusion. The faculty members do not have clarity on the credit-based system. Earlier, over five students were suspended without any showcause notice for questioning the changes in the syllabus norms.
Among the other issues, students also sought the appointment of permanent faculties.