Jun 15, 2001 10:37 AM
10911 Views
NIIT . My version ( Not Iinterested In Teaching. :):) )
This review is very specific with regard to their education and training department. Its not an overall review of NIIT.
Well to be fair, NIIT started out with great plans and to a certain extent the future plans were realised.
What was ?
''NIIT was founded in 1981 by entrepreneurial IIT Delhi batch mates, Rajendra S Pawar and Vijay K Thadani. P Rajendran their two-year junior at IIT Delhi joined them a few months later. They had an early vision of a society unprepared to cope with the information age. Their mission was ‘Bringing People and Computers Together, Successfully’.''
This is what they aspired and the founders succeeded to a certain extent. NIIT's advantage was that it was global and it spread its wings far and wide.
NIIT can be called the pioneer in bringing forth software education to the general mass.
It has an impressive partnership list... Microsoft, Computer Associates, Red Hat, Oracle, Sun Microsystems.
The course was very up-to-date and well it provided us with a good foundation and step by step process of climbing the knowledge ladder.
The faculty was great and well they aimed at providing us with the best. They tried their best to create a professional atmosphere which would not make us feel lost in a corporate environment.
The facilities were just great. NIIT computerdrome was the best part of NIIT which enabled students to work on projects and practice with the material which they learned in the class. I learnt how to carry out research on a subject and give and effective presentation... it has avery good subject ISAS which honed your communication skills to almost perfection... the interactive sessions helped us to get along with everyone from anywhere.. these points stand in good stead when one is stepping in a professional field.
They had great consultant services. Many of my friends were placed at good companies and many of them rae having great careers due to NIIT. They are able to match they alma matter with other software engineers without batting an eyelid.
So what went wrong ?
Well inspite of all that they had to offer, the quality went downhill since the late nineties.
I speak from personal experience. Impressed by the many success stories of my cousins and friends I was encouraged to join this institution. There were living examples of good placement and job satisfaction. Most importantly it was the name NIIT which meant a lot.
Well all went well in the beginning, great course, great faculty, great machine time, great projects....
The quality of teaching went from the best to worst.
Maybe its because they had so many branches all over the world. Atleast in Bangalore the quality of teaching differed greatly from the head office to the other branches. In the meantime, Aptech, Tulec and many other software education institutions came into the scene and NIIT had heavy duty competitors...
The faculties were more interested in getting a job in one of the MNCs so we had three to four teachers for one course which did not bode very well for the students as its very essential for a student to have a single teacher at least till the end of the semester. There were shortage of qualified and good teachers ... we had to make do with someone who had as little knowledge as the students in the final semester...
I was paying through my hat and I was not getting my money's worth. I changed centres and well what do you know ? I jumped from the frying pan into the fire :).
It was all the more disorganized when I came to the main centre. By that time my batchmates were like disgusted as everyone came in with a lot of expectations. We could easily see through the marketing strategies they were feeding the poor unsuspecting souls...
The course got more and more technical and the faculties got more non technical. For example, the problems and assignments were not solved properly.. they were literally ignored.. whatever was done was purely our own efforts but we could do only so much . We were totally new and learned via trial and errors and lots of time spent in the machine rooms.. When questions were being asked the faculty was very vague... machine rooms( practicals) were very few and there were many problems with the computers and the software installation... no proper network administrator or hardware maintenance...
Result ?? we came out to have very little knowledge besides our books which is anyway not enough in the field of software development... the basics have to be very strong .. NIIT provided us with a shaky foundation of computing knowledge and there were very few who made it till the last. I quit in the third semester.... I had had enough...
As students increased, management was loose, competition was high and meeting the standards were tough..
I must say that till today their marketing strategy is pretty good but thats all there is ... it reminds me of an empty bowl.. it makes lot of noise...
The scenario was that it was very obvious that NIITians were not at all the ones they wanted because the companies were very aware of the pathetic skills... whoever got through and there were very few through consultancy services... was purely through personal merit...
But whatever said and done... NIIT was an institution which saw very far into the future... It is another story that now its just another institution... from being THE institution ....
NIIT is doing very well in the field of providing software solutions and I think they will profit from this end rather than the education and training department which leaves a lot to be desired. If you are still interested in NIIT I recommend you have a look at http://www.netvarsity.com. It has got comprehensive coverage of their educational offerings.
If you are looking for something like NIIT, I would recommend the institution which IBM has set up.
