National Institute of Fashion Technology in Bhubaneswar

Bhubaneswar, July 3: With the required infrastructure and teaching faculty in place, the four-year-old National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), Bhubaneswar, is now planning to focus on short-term programmes.

The institute is planning to start five short-term programmes for the 2014-15 session. These include fashion retail management (FRM), garments export merchandising management (GEMM), textile design for fashion (TDF), fashion and clothing technology (FCT) and Indian fashion apparel and boutique management (IFABM).

The one-year duration programmes titled “Continuing education programmes” will target industry professionals and fashion enthusiasts looking for formal technical education in their respective areas of work or interests.

“The flexible schedule and timings of the programmes will enable the participants to pursue the programme without interrupting their profession or career. We are planning to conduct the classes from 5pm to 8pm,” said joint director L.M. Swain.

Admissions to the regular courses in NIFT are going on and will continue till the second week of July. Authorities are hoping that 20 per cent of the domicile seats are filled up this time. There are six seats reserved for Odia students in all the four undergraduate courses with 30 seats each.

“After lot of leg work over the last two years, we are finally getting students for these seats. However, while the three general seats are filled up, it becomes difficult to get candidates for the three reserved seats —one each for SC, ST and OBC,” Swain said.

The institute currently offers four bachelor programmes in design including BDes (textile design), BDes (fashion design), BDes (accessory design) and BDes (fashion communication) besides a postgraduate course on fashion designing.

This year, it has introduced two new programmes — fashion communication and bachelor in fashion technology with 30 seats each.

Since students to NIFT come from a variety of backgrounds (science, arts, tehnical), the first year curriculum is the same for all the courses where they are taught the basics of designing. Second year onwards, these students take classes in their own departments.

“The placements of the first batch of passouts is on and about 75 per cent students are already placed,” said an official.

Dubai retail group Landmark has hired two students from the institute. Students have also been recruited by Shoppers Stop, Snapdeal, Diesel and Impulse besides companies such as Orient Craft, Arvind and Radiant Exports.

Two students of the institute have been hired by the well-known designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee, said regional industry co-ordinator Gautam Bar. The placement for students of fashion and technology is a lot different from that of other technical graduates as in our case students are required to showcase their “portfolio” — the work they have done during the four-year course, he said.

“I had this creativity bug in me since childhood and my decision to come to NIFT was undoubtedly the best decision in my life,” said Shraddha, a student.