NIIT Chenphen Rigphen; The Fishy NAME within came true yesterday!

Image: yanatravel.com

I know the NIIT Chephen Rigphen Project is an ambitious project. I don’t have anything to talk about the  impact and the 'enabling and enhancing' goals the project have. What I want to address here is the poor, undemocratic and almost already fixed placement of second batch of Trainers announcement yesterday.

I believe the first batch of trainers was placed according to their choice of placement. That’s well and good. But the placement announced yesterday and the last minute recruitment of few graduates, who were initially not shortlisted as trainers, to fill up the empty slots made the matter worse.

My sister is one of the trainers. She got her placement in a Lower Secondary School, somewhere in east. The School is three hrs walk from a road point. The village has been provided with electricity since 7^th march, 2011. The weather is moderate so said a GAO officer there when I called him up for some details. But the concern officers at NIIT Chephen Rigphen were acting cool in placing the second batch of Trainers.

The second batch of Trainers were asked to write down their choice of placement earlier alike the first batch but the placement was not done according to the choices made by the trainers. The reason the management cited was the arrival of electricity in places not mentioned as their choice. Interestingly my sister had chosen Samtse Dzongkhag (two slots were available) as her choice of placement but she was denied of it and the placement were allotted to candidates who had never opted samtse Dzongkhag as their choice. Now, why on earth were they asked to write their choice of placement if the management cannot fulfill their wishes? Neither were they provided to lucky draw their own placement which probably could have been fair and more democratic. On which my sister said she was willing to go happily.

Today, when my sister requested the Officers at the NIIT Chephen Rigphen to give her any other placement that has not been provided with a trainer due to the shortage of candidates, she was told the management has already hired some candidates (the initially not selected graduates) to fill the slots. Initially rejected candidates were given more privilege than the shortlisted. They were also placed in more favorable places where at least a farm road connects their place of posting. The management did also remind my sister that the placement has been fixed by the HRO officer who is currently out of station and they have no authority to bring any change in the placements announced.

If the following incident is at all not coincidence, the management and the HRO have a big hand in placing the candidate in his own choice of placement.

From the beginning of their orientation program which will conclude by this Friday, one of the trainer candidates, who also use to come driving his own car, was always found promising himself that if he gets his placement under Thimphu Dzongkhag he will serve the Project else he would withdraw his candidature. Fairly enough or due to sheer family backup he got his choice of placement. Che- means one and Phen- means benefit!