Expressing dissatisfaction over standard of education and amenities on the campus, under graduate students of the Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Srirangam, functioning temporarily at the Bharathidasan Institute of Technology (BIT) campus of the Anna University-Tiruchi, have sought a change in the mentor institute.
The Anna University-Tiruchi is the mentoring institution of the IIIT, which came into existence in 2014. The State government had decided to establish the Central government institution in Srirangam constituency, represented by Chief Minister Jayalalithaa earlier. A site was allotted for the institute at Sethurapatti in the constituency and construction of the buildings was expected to be taken up soon. On Monday, the IIIT students presented a petition to the District Collector during the weekly grievances day meeting listing their grievances and demands.
The students complained that the mentor institute had failed to rise up to the standards and was unable to provide the basic amenities and technical environment that the national-level institute needed. No other upcoming IIIT or national-level instituted was being mentored by a State level institution. The IIIT, they pointed out, admitted candidates from throughout the country based on the national-level JEE main exams and it should be mentored by a national-level institute of high standards.
Listing their grievances, the students claimed that classrooms and the library of the IIIT were not well equipped. The syllabus was “not up to the mark and not comparable” with those of other national institutes as NITs and IITs. The students were forced to stay in congested rooms. The mentor institute had failed to register the IIIT for State scholarships, contended the first batch of (first year) students from B. Tech Information Technology, Computer Science Engineering, and Electronics and Communication Engineering.
Officials of the IIIT said the students had been “misguided” and clamouring to move to an institution such as the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchi. Postgraduate students were pursuing their programmes at the institute without any problems, they said.
T. Senthil Kumar, Dean of the institute, said adequate number of classrooms had been provided for the undergraduate students on the campus. A library had been established apart from a video conferencing room. Adequate amenities had been provided at the institute and the students had been accommodated at the guest house of the institute instead of the hostel so as to ensure quality accommodation, he said. All faculty members handling classes for the students were doctorates, he added.
