WBSU bags place in list of best public varsities in Bengal

Kolkata: For the first time in its 10 year history, West Bengal State University at Barasat has made it to the comprehensive list of the best public varsities in Bengal. The rating by Careers360, which happens to be the country's largest higher education and career counselling portal, is widely popular among students and helps them to decide which institutions should be targeted for degree program admissions in the state.

WBSU, with an overall score of 148.26, has bagged the AAA (Above Average) rating and is one of the newest varsities in the country to have figured in the list. "We are excited and encouraged as this rating has put us in public domain and has showed that WBSU has the potential to excel in academics," said Basab Chaudhuri, vice-chancellor of WBSU.

Interestingly, WBSU's rating is only next to the 62-year-old North Bengal University, which has an overall score of 148.65. Presidency University, with an overall score of 158.08, is only a few steps ahead of WBSU. It may be mentioned that the ranking/rating of Careers360 is based on factors like quality of students, research output, industry interface, referenced publications and academic productivity. The information provided by the portal is based on in-depth research and backed by authenticated data.

WBSU, since its inception in 2008, had been embroiled in administrative red-tapism and had its first convocation only in 2017. The inordinate delay in the publication of results was one of the major problems in the varsity.

After Chaudhuri took over as V-C in September 2015, he streamlined the examination process and results were published without delay. Questions were also raised over the efficiency of the previous vice-chancellor Jyoti Prakash Basu, which had led to his removal in 2015.

WBSU presently has as many as 46 colleges in North 24-Parganas affiliated to it. There are as many as 30 departments in the varsity and all traditional subjects taught in Calcutta University are taught in WBSU as well. There are as many as 1.5 lakh students pursuing various courses in the university.