Kolkata: St Xavier’s Calcutta, one of ten “colleges of excellence” in India on Fridady opened a new campus to cater to increasing demands for admissions.
Archbishop Thomas D’Souza of Calcutta blessed the campus at St Lawrence School in Kolkata, capital of West Bengal state, in the presence of Jesuit provincial Fr Jeyaraj Veluswami and principal Fr Felix Raj.
The principal said his institution received more than 45,000 applications for admission this year alone and they could admit only one tenth of them even after opening campus at Ragabpur in South 24 Parganas for rural people and the new one for the city people.
This demand and need of both parents and students in Kolkata and neighboring states prompted the Jesuits of Calcutta province to respond positively with this campus, the principal added.
The new campus has 210 students in the first year for both Bachelor of Business Administration and Bachelor of Commerce course.
The provincial said that the motto of every Jesuit institution is “All for the greater glory of God” that compels the members of the Society of Jesus to respond to every crying need of the people of a particular place.
The principal said every student is expected to achieve ‘Nihil Ultra’, ‘Nothing beyond’ in not only in studies but also in human formation.
Fr. Principal also informed that this is just yet another beginning but in the days to come, St. Xavier’s is moving to become a university with public-private partnership model, the first in the country.
Fr Raj announced two more campus in the pipeline, one at E M Bypass for Mass Media and Communication and another at Rajarahat Campus in the New City in Kolkata for allied subjects.
St Xavier’s would also open another college at Asansol, some 400 km northwest of Kolkata in a couple of days.
With new campus, the Jesuits of Calcutta Province have four centers of higher education.
Jesuit Father Anil Gomes is the coordinator of the new campus.