As the National Institute of Fashion Technology’s (NIFT) Kannur campus is preparing for its sixth convocation ceremony, it is on the path of academic excellence and growth.
The NIFT campus here started in 2008 with just two undergraduate courses and 51 students now has 717 students in seven courses in the Bachelor’s and Master’s levels. The number of faculty also rose from six to 50, including 20 guest faculty. Its students have also conducted intervention studies to strengthen local artisans.
“The campus actively promoted design and craft intervention in various clusters in Kerala to suggest suitable skill and production enhancement measures which can assist the grassroots-level workers to empower them,” said N. Elangovan, Director of NIFT-Kannur. He also told a press conference here on Wednesday that during 2016-17, eight of the faculty members had enrolled for PhD programmes to further upgrade themselves.
Student exchange
Also, under the NIFT policy of semester-exchange programme with various international institutions, six students had gone to four foreign institutes — three in France, two in Australia, and one each in Italy and Scotland, he added.
The sixth convocation ceremony would be held on the campus at Dharmasala at 3.30 p.m. on September 22. Samjay Kaul, Industries and Commerce Secretary in the State, would be the chief guest.
P.K. Sreemathy, MP; James Mathew, MLA; Sunil V., and founder and creative director of Motherland Joint Venture Pvt. Ltd, New Delhi; would be present at the function. The institute also invited five school students from poor families to witness the convocation ceremony, as per the desire of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Training
Dr. Elangovan said that NIFT-Kannur had conducted a skill-enhancement programme for Kudumbasree workers. Candidates had been trained in how to read a specification sheet, develop production patterns, and understand how to transfer the existing physical garment into paper patterns. They were also trained to sew a shirt in high speed industrial sewing machine, basics of printing, and to create designs using blocks of printing, he said. Twenty inmates of the Central Prison here were trained in fashion designing, pattern making, and garment construction relating to women’s wear, he said.
Professors R.S. Jayathi, Mohamed Ansar, and Abhilash Balan were present.
