Now, CEPT seeks to avoid ‘cattle fair’ in Gujarat

The comparison of the IIM placement system and Pushkar's cattle fair by executive vice-president of group HR, Tata Sons, Satish Pradhan, might have ruffled some feathers at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.  

But its neighbour, premier institute, Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (Cept) University seems to have taken the lesson to heart not to focus on the size of the pay packages offered.

 In a bid to avoid money oriented placement system, Cept bosses had instructed those working on the project not to come up with a 'cattle fair' like placement policy. This means emphasis is being laid on not judging a student's skills by the number of zeroes in the pay packages offered to him or her. 

Director of the university, RN Vakil, confirmed that the placement policy at the Cept is ready. He said the university follows different ideals when it comes to placement. "When students accept jobs emphasis should also be put on the learning opportunities that the organisation provides and not just on money offered by it. If it is offering great amount of learning and comparatively less amount of money students should accept the offer. What matters in the initial phase of career is learning," said Vakil.

Ironically, though Cept doesn't want students to parade before recruiters like the decked up animals parade before buyers at the Pushkar fair in Rajasthan like the IIMs do (as Pradhan had mentioned in his speech at IIM-A a few months ago) the varsity has followed IIM-A's footsteps by taking 'strict' measures of not divulging details of pay packages offered to its students!                                         

When DNA asked one of the faculty members involved in formulation of the placement policy, if the move has been taken to protect the institute from impact of slowdown, he said the move is to get students out of mentality of judging their quality by the zeros in salary figures.              

"Often students consider pay packages of higher significance than knowledge they acquire. We want to teach them that what is important is subject learning and acquiring expertise in the area," said a senior faculty member. Also, keeping pay packages under wraps would dispel any notions that Cept was a money oriented
institute, he added.