“Nift is adequate for basic education,” says Ritu Kumar, fashion designer and Nift graduate who sits on the school’s governing council. “The training could do with more emphasis on pattern making and style. The experience students get from the internships could also be expanded out into active involvement with the industry.”
Fashion designer Narendra Kumar, also a Nift graduate, who spent some time teaching at the school, describes Nift products as “robots”.
“They are taught to conform rather than be independent nowadays. They are taught by rote,” he says of the students at fashion schools, including Nift. “When I was a student there, there were good teachers and a lot of international faculty.”
Recruiting and keeping good faculty is one of the challenges that Nift faces, with the school relying heavily on its reputation and on returning graduates to attract good and well-trained teachers on board.
“We are looking for progressive thinking from our lecturers,” says Baxi. “They have to be very open-minded and open to new ideas. It is very, very difficult to find good faculty because teaching is a different sort of profession, and lecturers need to have a passion for teaching and be able to develop good chemistry with the students. Also, the industry is doing very well and people are better paid in the industry, so they find that a more attractive option.”
She adds that the school offers faculty development and exposure programmes, which invest in teachers and enables them to travel abroad for training and trade fairs, and take sabbaticals, in a bid to attract and retain faculty.
Although Jha believes that India “has definitely made great progress”, she argues that in comparison with international institutes, training centres in India need to further build capacity, adopt new techniques and skills and include new curricula in fashion education to match international standards.
She adds: “Another important area which we need to develop is producing in-depth literature and well-researched documents on fashion.”