In May 1826, a seventeen-year-old youth, Henry Louis Vivian Derozio, joined the ten-year-old Hindu College as a teacher and revolutionised the character of the institution. He inspired a generation of students who were fearless and inquisitive. It was from then that Bengal’s higher education system began to command deep respect throughout India. Today, however, scarcely a trace of that prestige remains. In the recent past, the state has failed to produce even a single scholar or educationist whose achievements could become a source of collective Bengali pride.
Among the top hundred universities and colleges in the country, only a handful of institutions from West Bengal have found a place; among these, some are, again, centrally funded or private institutions. Can this situation now change? By a curious coincidence, the same month of May in which Derozio joined Hindu College also witnessed the formation of a new BJP government in the state under the slogan “Paltano Darkar.” The newly appointed higher education minister has also declared that his goal is to make West Bengal lead the nation in education. If this ambition is to be realised, he will have to take several difficult and unpopular decisions.
The first task must be to free educational institutions from political control. The governing bodies of all colleges in the state have already been dissolved. This is a step in the right direction. It must now be ensured that when new governing bodies are constituted, politically connected individuals close to the ruling party do not figure in these bodies. Similarly, the autonomy of universities must be guaranteed. Under the previous government, such autonomy largely existed only on paper. Higher education flourishes only when institutions are able to make academic decisions with minimal political and bureaucratic interference.
Whether in the appointment of vice-chancellors and faculty members, the design of curricula, or the formulation of research policies, merit and competence must take precedence over political loyalty. Political control is particularly undesirable in matters of curriculum development and academic research. Another difficult but necessary task must also be undertaken. During the previous government’s tenure, vacancies for elected teacher representatives in important decision-making bodies, such as, the Executive Council and the Court of universities remained unfilled for fifteen years.
The result was that teachers ~ the very backbone of education ~ had almost no role in institutional decision-making. Heads of different departments served on these bodies on a rotational basis, often for only one year at a time. Knowing that they would soon be replaced, they had little incentive or opportunity to challenge decisions imposed from above. Moreover, the earlier rules were altered to increase disproportionately the number of college principals in university Executive Councils.
Regrettably, many of them had only limited understanding of the contemporary realities of university-level teaching and research. The consequences were predictable. These bodies also lacked representation from students and non-teaching staff, despite their being important stakeholders in university life. The new Higher Education Minister should remember that institutional development requires broad-based participation in decision-making. He will also face several other challenging responsibilities, the first of which will be the recruitment of teachers. Rabindranath Tagore left us a clear vision of what an ideal Indian university should be.
In a lecture delivered in 1919, he argued that education cannot be treated merely as a branded commodity. He said, “…in the natural course of things, the water comes first and then comes the fish ~ it is the presence of the learned men which draws the students round them, if their wish is to learn, and not merely to be branded, like a saleable commodity, with the stamp of their market value.” In other words, a university’s first requirement is teachers; only after appointing faculty should students be admitted. Yet in recent years we have witnessed the mushrooming of universities that lack even their own buildings and, in some cases, do not have even a single full-time teacher.
Such institutions urgently require the appointment of permanent faculty members. Across the state, many colleges and universities have long-standing vacancies in permanent teaching positions. These posts should be filled without further delay. In colleges, teachers appointed under the SACT scheme should be required, within a specified period, either to qualify through NET/SET examinations or to complete a Ph.D. Despite lacking the minimum qualifications required for college teaching, many of them have continued in service for years. The damage caused to teaching, research, and academic culture by the absence of qualified full-time faculty is immense and often irreversible.
During the past several years, state support for the developmental needs of colleges and universities has been far from adequate. In some cases, institutions have not even received funds to purchase books for their libraries. If higher education is to improve meaningfully, budgetary allocations for the sector must be increased substantially. Research infrastructure in most state universities is also currently weak. There is a shortage of modern laboratories, digital libraries, journal subscriptions, and research grants. If the new government genuinely wishes to prioritise research, it should establish university-based research funds, create interdisciplinary research centres, and encourage collaboration between universities and industry.
Without improving research quality, no meaningful improvement in higher education can be achieved. In fact, funding from the University Grants Commission (UGC) for research in humanities has virtually disappeared in recent years. As a result, particularly in the humanities, undertaking new research projects has become almost impossible. The state government should therefore increase research funding and establish a dedicated cell to facilitate the approval and implementation of research projects. Another issue also deserves attention. Faculty members in central universities enjoy the benefit of sabbatical leave for research, whereas such provisions do not exist in state-supported universities in West Bengal, despite being available in many other Indian states.
If the quality of research (especially in humanities) is to improve, introduction of the sabbatical leave is mandatory. The semester system without the sabbatical leave could be a prison house for the teachers. Infrastructure development across colleges and universities is equally important. Even today, many institutions suffer from inadequate classrooms, libraries, laboratories, hostels, and internet facilities. In the digital age, higher education requires high-speed internet, smart classrooms, online learning resources, and efficient digital administration. These facilities are particularly necessary in district colleges so that students are not compelled to migrate to Kolkata for quality education. More than seven decades after independence, higher education in West Bengal remains overwhelmingly Kolkata-centric.
This imbalance must be corrected. Why should not at least one college in every district be developed as a Centre of Excellence? Higher education must also be linked more effectively with employment. Universities are not merely factories for producing job-seekers, but neither can they ignore the relationship between education, society, and the economy. Many students remain unemployed even after obtaining advanced degrees. Addressing this problem requires not only expanding employment opportunities in the public sector and conducting transparent and regular recruitment examinations through bodies such as the School Service Commission, Public Service Commission, and College Service Commission, but also strengthening partnerships between universities, industries, and start-up enterprises.
The National Education Policy places considerable emphasis on internships. Yet, in many rural colleges, internships are still conducted in a perfunctory manner. Colleges should explore the possibility of signing Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) with local industries and enterprises to provide meaningful internship opportunities to the students. Similarly, greater attention must be paid to the internationalisation of universities. Student and faculty exchange programmes, collaborative research projects, and international conferences should be encouraged.
Such initiatives would help integrate West Bengal’s higher education system more closely with global academic standards. Special efforts should also be made to attract international students. Institutions such as the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) regularly attract students from abroad. Why should state-supported universities not aspire to do the same? Carefully designed programmes in areas such as Indology and South Asian Studies could attract students from developed countries. Like the IITs, universities in West Bengal should also introduce summer courses. Such programmes would not only generate revenue but also enhance the international visibility of these institutions.
Alumni of universities occupying important positions in India and abroad should also be encouraged to meaningfully contribute to the development of their alma maters. If there is one sector that has suffered most severely during the fifteen years of Trinamool Congress rule, it is education. The new government now has an opportunity to restore the lost prestige of West Bengal’s higher education system by placing excellence and the pursuit of knowledge at the centre of policy.
It is true that the new Higher Education Minister does not possess a magic wand capable of transforming everything overnight. Yet he can set the direction in which higher education should move. If he wants West Bengal to reclaim a position of national leadership in higher education, he must first become the captain of that journey himself ~ a captain who can dream while remaining firmly grounded in reality, and who knows how to bring out the very best in every member of the team without bias and favouritism.
(The writer is Professor, Department of English and Culture Studies, and Director, Centre for Australian Studies, the University of Burdwan)