Students win this round: FTII backs down on 600% fee hike, age limit for admissions

The Film and Television Institute of India was spared a 33% to 600% hike in fees and an upper age limit on admissions after its Academic Council rejected these proposals made by the administration.

The premier film-making school will, however, continue with its policy, introduced in 2011, of raising fees by 10% every year, and implement an annual 10% hike in hostel charges - despite the students' objection that the hike is too steep for a state-run educational institution.

The Academic Council met in Mumbai on Friday to discuss these and other proposals. On the agenda was setting an age limit of 25 years for admissions under the general category, with a five-year relaxation for SC/ST candidates and a three-year relaxation for OBC candidates.

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Harishankar Nachimuthu, president of the FTII Students Association who attended the meeting as one of two student representatives in the Academic Council, told Catch that while the age limit proposal was entirely discarded, the fee hike was strongly challenged by the students as well as some faculty members, but they were outvoted.

The statement detailing the decisions of the council, headed by Brijendra Pal Singh, is yet to be released.

"The students, alumni and faculty have been fighting hard to maintain the subsidised status of the institute. Even increasing the fees by 10% every year is far too much, and would progressively cut off a major section of aspiring students who come from weaker economic backgrounds. We have protested against this hike in the past and will continue to protest," said Nachimuthu.

The council's decisions now await ratification by the FTII Governing Council, headed by the institute's controversial chairperson Gajendra Chauhan.

Nachimuthu said the students' body will write to members of the General Council protesting the 10% annual hike. "The government is looking at the FTII as a business enterprise, and not as a public institution that teaches an art form and which is accessible to the people."

He said the students also questioned why the Academic Council's meeting was held in Bombay and not on the institute premises in Pune. "We were told that the administration feared protests by students if the meeting had taken place at the FTII itself."

FTII director Bhupendra Kainthola had earlier said the administration had studied the fee structures of other institutes such as the National School of Drama and the National Institute of Design before drafting its proposal. Also, he had added, both the NSD and the NID had age limits for admissions.

The reason given by the FTII administration for the massive hike was that it was long overdue as the fees had not been revised for many years. Kainthola told PTI the CAG, in its audit report, had "passed strictures that fees at FTII were irrational".