With the help of its alumni, the university has increased the number of scholarships in various undergraduate and post-graduate courses to 350.

“We are coming up with new scholarships for girls and marginalised communities so that students with limited means can access the university courses,” said Ajoy Kumar Roy, the Vice-Chancellor of the university. Apart from this, the BESU will set up two centres - one on innovation and the other for promoting theatre and art activities.

Every year the ‘Centre for Ideas and Innovation’ will award ten best ideas on innovation. “Students who wish to join the institute can take rounds of the campus and see the ambience and infrastructure of the university and then decide whether to seek admission here or not,” said Roy.

Over 200-year-old BESU is the oldest technical university in the state. At present students with ranks as low as 1800 in the West Bengal Joint Entrance Examination (WBJEE) manage to get admission in the university. Being rated second after Jadavpur University in terms of academic parameters in Bengal, BESU is unable to attract the top rankers of the WBJEE in spite of offering residential facilities to the students. In recent years, many top rankers have even opted for private engineering colleges as incidents of campus violence are rampant at BESU. The university is also in the process of revamping its syllabi to make it at par with the requirement of industry and research.

Fewer colleges, but Bengal scores in teachers

Kolkata: Bengal may have a fewer number of colleges compared to other states in the country, but it has over 10,000 teachers in colleges across the state. Higher Education Minister Sudarshan Roychowdhury said there are 9,672 permanent teachers in 419 colleges in the state.

The department also pays salary to nearly 3,171 part-time teachers. The teachers-students ratio in the colleges in the state is 1:67. He was speaking at a symposium on ‘Education in West Bengal: The Road Ahead’ organised by the Merchants Chamber of Commerce on Friday. To effectively monitor higher education, the minister said the state government will come up with a proper inspectorate to take stock of academic activities in colleges.

“We are not in favour of officers inspecting the colleges but we will take the help of academicians and teachers and even students to take a performance-based test for colleges,” said Roychowdhury. The department has already introduced an academic performance index based on the performance of the colleges in the Gour Bengal University, he said. “We had earlier approached the HRD ministry for financial help to nearly 50 colleges in the state in the last plan, mostly in the backward and minority-dominated districts, but our request was rejected saying that the colleges were not set up in the time limit specified by the ministry,” said Roychowdhury. ENS