C N Vidyalaya - College of Fine Arts plans to get affiliated with the Gujarat University

Updated on: Friday, August 09, 2013

The C N Vidyalaya - College of Fine Arts plans to get affiliated with the Gujarat University and offer degree courses by this year-end in a bid to upgrade the college and offer better education to its students,

Currently, the college hands out diplomas in Drawing, Painting, Applied (Commercial) Arts, Sculpture and Art Teacher Diploma and is eyeing an affiliation with GU, so that it can start offering degree courses.

To this end, the college authorities have constituted a five-member advisory committee, headed by eminent city-based artist Amit Ambalal who will prepare a draft proposal that the college will present to the UGC (University Grants Commission) and the state government for approval.

The college, which is Ahmedabad's only art training centre, was founded a decade after the M S University, Vadodara's Fine Arts Faculty. The college has produced eminent artists of national fame like Natu Parikh, Dashrat Patel, Piraji Sagara , Natvar Bhavsar , Amrut Patel, Piraji Sagara, among others, and had opened its own art gallery in 2010.

"We will get affiliated to the Gujarat University once it becomes a degree college. We are still in the process of finalising the syllabus, after which we will send out proposals to the state government. After being suggested by the advisory committee last year, we did a study on the syllabus of reputed art institutes like the J J School of Arts and MSU's Faculty of Fine Arts to draft our own. Owing to intense competition, it is hard for diploma-holders to get jobs these days, which is why we have decided on this much-needed move," says T J Purani, Director of Sheth C N Vidyavihar.

The fine arts college forms part of the 13 educational institution in the 62 acres campus that falls under the Sheth Sarabhai Manganbhai Trust Fund set up by Sheth Chimanlal Nagindas in the city in 1926. With over 7,000 alumni, it currently has a faculty strength of 28 teachers and 450 students.

"As far as my understanding of the college goes, it should move forward by taking up such reforms. The college is of historical standing and is of the likes of MSU's Faculty of Fine Arts. While the faculty is very good, even the students coming out of the institute are of exceptional quality. I recommend that to give the course a strong professional footing like that of an architecture or engineering course, it should take students after Class XII. The course also needs to be converted to a four-year course instead of a five-year one as it is now," says Pradyumna Vyas, Director of National Institute of Design (NID) and one of the members of the advisory committee formed by C N College of Fine Arts.

C N Vidyalaya - College of Fine Arts plans to get affiliated with the Gujarat University

More Education news