2016
I was more than a little amused to see so many reviews since I last wrote. VIT has finished chasing the ABET accreditation people for many of its engineering programmes. Now they want NAAC and even world ranking(QS and maybe even the other Times Higher Education) and for this, they need to publicise their achievements and build up a public fanbase.
One cannot imagine how much money and connections go into keeping a place like VIT(both campuses) running, especially now in the summer, where Vellore is blazing hot and Chennai is no better. I don't think there's too much trouble with water or electricity-outages are brief in hostels and generators pick up quickly. Nothing compared to what the general public is facing all over India.
I agree with some of the comments here about money though, it's no small matter to go through VIT-you must have the financial capacity. And all these semester abroad programme etc are all mirages, only the very financially stable parents and moderately well off parents with just one kid can afford this sort of indulgence. Though these days kids seldom understand what it takes to run a house and the more sacrifices parents make for them to be comfortable, the less aware they are of the financial and other realities of the world.
For every allowance VIT makes for students, allowing them to write exams again if they missed them for any reason, registering for courses and appearing for exams in which they failed- they make sure students pay through the nose. Hostel food seems to be getting somewhat worse though it's difficult to gauge whether it is genuinely a problem("we found worms in the vegetables", "there was a long caterpillar in the rice" etc) or whether these students want extra money to go out and binge with their friends. Now that Dominos has opened a branch in Vellore and those delivery fellows sit outside its gates, these students seem to have started queuing up inside the gates to go outside and pick up pizzas. More grease in the students' arteries and more money for Dominos.
Crowding continues, yet another academic year will end soon and admissions will begin in May-June and the new kids will flood campus in July. A few changes(like this CAL system about which I will write a little later when I have a more complete picture this summer). Increasing discipline issues.
2015
I got news that counseling went on this time in the now airconditioned Anna auditorium so it looks like either management got complaints about the horrible experience of parents in the past or have read my review. Can't imagine how much electricity that place will need.
VIT is a lot like AAP(and like India)-a lot of(squandered) promise but rife with internal conflicts and a lack of strategic vision. Apparently Indian Bank(the VIT branch) has undergone a major makeover because of VIT and has become a lot more customer-friendly. I think VIT must be 30 years old.
It does take time for organisations to lay down roots and become stable so one cannot expect miracles overnight. Where many organisational systems are concerned, the institute does try to be "customer-friendly." But there are things that VIT management allegedly says and I know it does that paint it with negative shades(in my eyes).
On the positive side are these attempts to streamline their administrative processes and their attention to infrastructure. On the negative side are their inefficient and often boorish staff, their adhoc policies that change from individual to individual which gives rise to a lot of corruption, the increased crowding of that beautiful Vellore campus and the squandering of human resources in their institutes, among other problems.
The squandering of human resources is connected partly to the intrinsic prejudices of management-regional, gender, age, even professional. I am told engineering faculty are paid more than the others and the divisions go deeper according to other factors. The other aspect of this wasted human resource capital is the apparent lack of strategic vision. Like the slogans mouthed by politicians, they say they want ranking, accreditation and a world-class reputation.
But they don't seem to be investing in human capital or in policies that will help them get there. They want to pamper students with easy grades because students are "customers" but want these pampered students to go on and be brand ambassadors for the institute. This confusion between a service mentality and a product mentality is creating confusion among their staff and their senior administrators and even the students.
And to top it all, management seems to enjoy creating a lot of rifts among its staff and faculty with its adhoc policies favouring some and disrespecting others. These rifts and the disenchantment among staff is what reminds me of AAP because they seem to be pushing back against the disrespect shown to them by management by not aligning themselves with the institute's goals.
2014:
I came to know recently of a Master's student who died in VIT after playing some sport vigorously-he was taken to their health centre when he had chest pains. These people ran some tests but otherwise did nothing helpful. He died later that day. They managed to keep things quiet and didn't even acknowledge his classmates' and friends' shock.
Sounded scary though the student may already have had some medical problems. Still, VIT is taking in so many students, building all these buildings and trying to set up campuses in Chennai and I believe in Bangalore as well. But they haven't invested in a decent health center. The usual solution to everything is to go to CMC but it would take some 25 minutes to reach there when there's no traffic and maybe even an hour to reach in peak traffic.
Precious time if someone's in serious trouble. After that professor's death in 2012, a few others have died of heart attacks and accidents and even suicide. Management got a fancy ambulance right after that 2012 death because they didn't even have any way to give oxygen to a patient during transit(the prof apparently never recovered from coma. My CMC review).
But things haven't changed much in this matter. People read of suicides in other institutes but not in VIT. It's not because it doesn't happen, they manage to completely suppress the information. Their influence on the press and law and order in Vellore, and for that matter, Tamil Nadu, makes these people very scary. This is another very callous and irresponsible stance shown by management and administration towards human life(students and staff) because they are too busy raking in money. Parents are urged to monitor their wards very carefully and take swift action in case of any sort of suspicious circumstances.
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These people are growing in a very uncontrolled way and their policies show poor planning. Student strength is growing rapidly and based on the hostels constructed in the men's campus, it looks like they expect to admit mainly male students. The women will either be cramped together if their strength grows or maybe they don't anticipate many female students. The sorts of students they are recruiting are a mix of some good, many average and many many bad students who don't get admission anywhere else. These come there for passing the time.
Suppose they have 12000 men and 7000 women(aged 17-25 years?). 12000 men mingling with 7000 females in the daytime and then with each other after the women are locked in. And not all the streams will have a significant strength of female students so the ratio is even more skewed. Security mainly guards the management in the main building. This seems like a very risky situation for the female students AND for the male students because these people won't be able to control the more aggressive varieties. Management is more interested in the fees. Lots of corruption among employees and even students.
This only comes out when someone does not get their way. Till then management turns a blind eye. I think serious students will be hurt by such policies and their parents will end up paying fees to finance other students and more building.
2013:
The July 2013 review by Naveenprem is the sort of advertising that VIT’s well-oiled public relations machinery puts out quite often and it appears that Naveenprem is a component of this machinery. I wasn't going to write about some of the experiences in VIT because there are problems everywhere but this self-congratulatory July 2013 review prompts me to write about them. Admissions in VIT, Vellore campus, were a really overcrowded affair but the administrative staff appeared to be have some things under control. But in some aspects both in the general auditorium(the outdoor one called Anna auditorium) and in some of the schools, their attitude towards parents/guardians of the students was callous.
Parents waited for hours in the summer heat, hardly relieved by the fans in the huge auditorium, and even in the school buildings, for hours on end. There was no system to organised people into groups so that everybody didn't just wait around for long periods. Parents and their wards stood in lines and groups waiting to be called, afraid to even go for lunch for fear that their number would be called in their absence.
I suppose once people are identified as students and their fee-paying parents, there is no need to treat them with the respect given to those who are still being lured into the system. Many staff members were not friendly and didn't even attempt to speak in English or even call someone who could speak in English. Of course, I am sure it is not easy to be surrounded by anxious students and their parents, all asking more or less the same thing without paying attention to whether their doubts were being clarified for someone else. But that is the nature of admissions rounds.
Another recent event that has come to light about VIT are the reports that Mr. G. V. Sampath, the Chancellor’s second son, has been ousted from his position as Vice president and that he has filed a case against the trust administering the university(mismanaging is his allegation). Given that allegations of mismanagement and corruption have plagued and continue to dog so many state universities and national institutes in India, this rot seems to be more or less systemic for the entire country and not specific to VIT.
Of course, in VIT’s case, this seems to be a side effect of a longstanding family feud, which almost always turns out to be ugly for family business so it is difficult for outsiders to gauge how much this should affect the day-to-day functioning of the university. However, in the midst of all this is an accurate accusation that VIT’s Chennai campus has been enrolling students and recruiting faculty since 2010 onwards though they received their MHRD and UGC approval prospectively from June this year.
The same pro-Vice Chancellor, Dr. Anand Samuel, who had written that Hindu article mentioned in my earlier post, has apparently been the pro-Vice Chancellor of the Chennai campus from its inception. But family businesses(especially in India) never really move away from their family roots in spite of such squabbles. I believe a grand-daughter who graduated from the Vellore campus a few years ago has returned to it as a top management trainee. The feudal mindset in India never encourages or even allows general business etiquette and professionalism to take their place in the boardroom.
This mindset has ensured that people kowtow not just to people in power but also to their relatives, their secretaries, their employees(cooks, drivers, security guards etc) and their pets and property, regardless of age or experience. So it would appear that like everything in India, VIT management is good at bending the rules for its benefit. Who in the world doesn’t? The real questions are how will such dynasties perform in today’s competitive scenario, are(all or most of) the graduates of this university employable, and will the university’s worth in teaching and research rise above the sort of description that everybody posts on their website, which such loyal publicists like NaveenPrem share with us?
Hot and tempting VIT
By: suchow339| May 21, 2013 08:57 PM
INFRASTRUCTURE: The management really does spend a lot of money in maintaining its buildings very well and there are some very people-friendly structures like the pretty red roofs all along the pavements that go up and down the campus to protect pedestrians from the cruel Vellore summers. And this is saying something: Vellore must be the hottest and driest place in summer in Tamil Nadu.
Amazingly, even in that summer, their campus is green with a lot of watering going on all the time. They say they recycle the waste water and use that to water their lawns. I would imagine solar energy is really something these people could tap into, but I couldn’t see a proportional presence of solar panels. Less importance is apparently given to people who have to lug heavy objects around rather use ramps and other structures lest their beauty be ruined.
The university recently got an A grade along with some other deemed universities. The Chancellor of the university is a former member of the AIADMK. He and his four sons form the university’s management along with other administrators like the Vice Chancellor and Pro-Vice Chancellors. VIT’s public relations machinery is a well-oiled one, with strong ties with well known newspapers and magazines in India.
Event management of all sorts(workshops, conferences, symposia, interschool and intercollege competitions, school sports events) is key here because it gives a good return on all the investment in the infrastructure. Some movies have even been shot here on the Vellore campus(Robot—that Rajnikanth, Aishwarya Rai movie; Happy Days and Bodyguard): money and publicity in one go.
FACILITIES: Apparently classrooms are not bad with projector facilities available in most classrooms and even functional in many. Hostels are fairly comfortable though this is a bit tricky. We were jokingly told about the good rooms being shown to students and parents but that students are finally accommodated in four and six bedded rooms. Then again, I know some IIT and other government institute students who complained of worse situations.
The campus had everything that one could possibly need and autorickshaws stood right outside the gates, providing easy access to the main city of Vellore with its Fort, Golden temple and CMC(Christian Medical College) and most importantly, to the new bus stand and railway station that facilitate exit from Vellore. VIT has played a very crucial role in the development of even surrounding areas of the town/city as evidenced by the somewhat good quality of the roads and shopping complexes(in spite of the lack of Dominos, Pizza hut and Lifestyle, which according to many of these youngsters, are marks of sophistication).
Of course, there is no comparison possible to shopping and other recreation in larger cities like Bangalore, Chennai etc but still one can make out the differences on roads travelled frequently by these well-funded students and the little lanes that lead into surrounding hamlets. It seems many of these establishments even close when the students take off for their vacation, leaving a deserted or “under maintenance” look on the place.
RESEARCH FACILITIES: Research funds and facilities are not on par with what a research oriented university should be investing. There are some pockets of apparently well equipped research centers but they seem to be associated with the same funny business so many places(especially in India) have to slow people down.
Research scholars do get a stipend but also end up generously supplementing it with their own personal funds to outsource their research to external research facilities. The university has recently added some big instruments in chemistry with the help of some partial government funding. The university does boast of funded projects and sponsored research and consultancies with industries. But given the disproportionate investment in research facilities, it is not clear whether researchers are simply using their funds to pay others to carry out their research for them or whether the whole thing is a lie.
Their website claims that they have overtaken many private universities in the number of research publications. I believe this stems from the pressure put on students(even undergraduate) to publish results from projects of ridiculously short durations like few months, oral and poster presentations and all sorts of reviews of published studies in indexed journals. Apparently, publication in indexed journals is a criterion for students to even pass certain courses. Research output and funding are linked to perks for all faculty members. It is true that the lack of any substantial research presence is what costs Indian institutes their place in the global scene.
But to build up a research presence means a serious investment in research facilities, the recruitment and retention of well trained people, and the provision of seed funding for research efforts. Without adequate research facilities or funding or training, no substantial progress can be made to become a research-oriented university. Simply flooding the public domain with all sorts of reports put together for certificates, degrees, grades and performance incentives is not research output. This brings us to INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL and PEDAGOGICAL SYSTEMS.
Apparently, there are some good teachers whom the students do respect for their knowledge and guidance(well, as much students do these days). But there are also many others who seem to be on the payroll to simply fulfill guidelines laid down by policymakers. Placements are not that impressive though VIT boasts of ties with many IT companies and constantly invites other companies in the electronics and manufacturing domains to workshops on campus. I don’t know to what extent the IT industry will continue to attract youngsters if they start to hire only temporary workers on contract whenever they need manpower and then let them go rather than have them sitting on the bench, waiting for the next project.
Biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry recruitments are practically non existent. Of course, if IT begins to only go for temporary workers, the only people who will have continuous employment will be HR, finance and administration. VIT does have a business school but I don’t think the students’ placements compare to anything near what IIMs and other more well known places boast of. Strangely enough the pro-Vice chancellor of the Chennai campus contributed an article “
https://thehindu.com/features/education/in-tune-with-the-times/article4706192.e
ce”
I wonder if there are several insinuations about what the reality in VIT. Critical challenges have been listed: attracting and retaining committed, qualified faculty members, disparity in salary, not giving UGC approved salary, not giving due respect to teachers, creating a fear psychosis among teachers, not providing a conducive academic ambience to do their duty, the “value” system followed in the institution, the object of running it and the “mission”. Apparently, it is true that VIT pays a lower salary than what is approved by the UGC and that university politics have been responsible for a lot of the attrition seen
