Petition for revision of Graduation Project guidelines for semester 8 students at NIFT.
- Target:
- Dean (Academics), National Institute of Fashion Technology
- Region:
- India
National Institute of Fashion Technology is one of the premier institutes of fashion education in the country. For the longest time in the history of the institute, students learn about everything from dressmaking to crafts and textiles and graduate with a final project which encompasses the essence of all that they have learnt.
Semester 8 students are given a choice of two methods to create their Graduation Project - they can either choose to stay in college and use the available resources to create a self-sponsored project, or they can work with a company which will sponsor their research and product development to bring back to college at the end of the semester.
The batch of 2020 started their Graduation Project with the same guidelines. But as the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the world and inevitably struck India too, these students were left stranded in cities faraway from home - unable to go back, unable to go to work, and unable to do anything to salvage the situation, really.
In this situation which is in fact common to their peers across the globe, the students of the graduating batch of NIFT are stuck in a peculiar position - they are being asked to produce the previously stated requirements of physical products to justify their projects, which is a demand that simply does not make sense from any perspective.
This petition is an attempt to resist the archaic mindset of the institution that prioritises on norms over the safety of its students. We are fighting against these impractical demands and are asking for our situation to be dealt with more sensitivity.
The students of the batch of 2020 are pursuing their Graduation Projects in diverse industries which include, but are not restricted to : garment construction, textiles, home furnishings, sweaters and specialised sportswear, lingerie, rugs and carpets, leather garments, bags and shoes, accessories, jewellery, lifestyle products, packaging and production, merchandising, photography, marketing, digital content, styling, animation, web and app development, handicraft and handloom.
Since the lockdown has been announced in the country, the students have been unable to go to work, and even though they have continued working from home, producing prototypes for most of these industries require specialized machinery and industrial experience which they do not have access to. On being asked to create physical products, they are facing multiple problems in the form of : material procurement and sourcing, which is extremely dangerous right now as most wholesale raw material markets are hotspots of the virus; material development and detailing, which again requires services and machinery which are not available outside specific industries; travel and accommodation, as most students are either stuck away from home, or if they have been able to travel back, are in home or state-decreed quarantine, so it's extremely dangerous for them to travel all the way back to the industries; and industry cooperation, as most industries have declared that the internship period has ended, and citing personal losses in the face of the pandemic, have withdrawn their support from helping the students to finish their projects.
Despite all this, they are being pressurized to produce physical results without any consideration to their health and safety, unavailability of materials near their hometowns, the financial situation of their families, and the students' own mental health.
In light of the current global situation, when the entire world is reeling from the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic, we, the students of NIFT, call upon the administration and the Dean (Academics) to revoke the current guidelines and release a revised set of guidelines for the graduation project, taking care to ensure that they are such that can be fulfilled by all the students despite their current situation.
You can further help this campaign by sponsoring it
The Petition for revision of Graduation Project guidelines for semester 8 students at NIFT. petition to Dean (Academics), National Institute of Fashion Technology was written by Janhvi Chopra and is in the category Students' Rights at GoPetition.