Bengal education dept declines permission for crucial Calcutta University meet

Kolkata, Dec 12 (IANS) West Bengal education department, at the last moment, has denied permission to the iconic University of Calcutta to conduct a crucial examination-related meeting of the university’s syndicate which was scheduled for Tuesday.

The meeting was crucial in the sense that some decisions were supposed to be taken there over the introduction of a “new examination system” in light of the new education policy nationally for the 169 colleges under the jurisdiction of the University of Calcutta.

University insiders said that a last moment communiqué reached the authorities on Monday evening from the state education department denying permission for conducting the meeting of the syndicate.

As a reason for the denial of the permission, the state education department has stated that since the University of Calcutta does not have any permanent vice- chancellor such meetings cannot be convened by any interim vice-chancellor.

Currently, the daily affairs of the University of Calcutta are being managed by the current interim vice-chancellor Shanta Dutta, who was appointed by the West Bengal Governor C.V Ananda Bose. The issue of the interim vice- chancellor had been long contentious following the continuing tussle between the Governor’s House and state secretariat.

University insiders apprehend that unless a quick decision relating to the matter of introduction of “new examination system” is taken, there might be future complications relating to declaration of results, thus putting the future of the students at stake.

Recently, similar complications surfaced in another iconic university in the city, Jadavpur University (JU), where the proposal to convene a working committee meeting of the university by the current interim vice- chancellor Buddhadeb Sau was rejected by the state education department on similar grounds.

Like Dutta, Sau was also appointed by the Governor as the interim vice- chancellor, much to the disliking of the state government. The JU had been running without a permanent vice-chancellor and Sau was appointed by the Governor soon after the ragging- related suicide of a minor fresher at the student’s hostel there.

–IANS

src/dpb