Kolkata: The state assembly on Thursday passed The St Xavier’s University, Kolkata Bill-2016, paving the way for a new university — a self-financed private one — at New Town that will have the power to manage all higher education institutions run by the St Xavier’s College, Kolkata Educational Trust across the state.
The new university will be a “constituent university” , after state-run “affiliating universities” (such as Calcutta University), and “unitary universities” (Jadavpur University).
The bill provides that the university may have as many constituent colleges situated within Bengal that are established and administered by the sponsoring trust. The state’s governor will be the university’s “visitor” and president of the trust. The governor will appoint the vice-chancellor in consultation with the university’s governing board. In state-run universities, the chancellor appoints the VC in consultation with the government. All other bodies are similar to other universities.
The university aims at running courses from humanities to the sciences and professional courses such as engineering, medicine and law. And though it’s privately run, the governing board has to follow all-India guidelines for admission. For instance, the admission to engineering courses will be from the All India Entrance Examination and WBJEE, until the university comes with its own admission procedure. The state government will prescribe tuition fees for professional courses from time to time. The university also has to keep a minimum of 5% seats reserved for economically disadvantaged students.
A constituent university is not a unitary university, but it’s also different from affiliating universities, such as CU. “The university can’t affiliate any college that seeks its affiliation,” a higher education department official explained. “Only colleges with the St Xavier’s brand name, run by the Jesuit Trust, can be affiliated.”
The university coming up at New Town will start operating from the 2017-’18 academic session with a minority institution status.
The government has turned down the proposal from the St Xavier’s authorities to set up the university on a Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) model. “There is no such precedence. So, we haven’t extended the privilege to them,” the official said.
“St Xavier’s college has been recognized as one of the most prestigious educational institutions in the country, and allowing them to open a university will encourage research in various branches of learning and course of study, promote advancement and dissemination of knowledge and learning and extend higher education to meet the growing needs of society,” education minister Partha Chatterjee said, moving the bill.
“This is a historic day for the Jesuits in Bengal,” said Felix Raj, principal of St Xavier’s College Kolkata, who has been at the forefront of the initiative to set up the university.
“I thank the chief minister and all the legislators for being supportive to our cause. Now, we will be able to serve more students and set up another centre of excellence.”
source: Times of India