Impart good values among other colleges also: Partha urges Bethune teachers

Kolkata: State Education minister Partha Chatterjee urged the teachers and administrators of Bethune College to make efforts to spread their good values and practices among other colleges in the state as well.

"I sometimes wonder there are so many colleges in the state but institutions like Bethune College has been able to maintain a standard of excellence not only in academics but in other activities too. You should come forward and spread the message of how you are inculcating good values and practices among your students to the other colleges also," Chatterjee said at the annual prize distribution and inauguration of some new facilities at the 140-year-old Bethune College on Wednesday.

He made it clear that the government alone cannot do everything and good colleges like Bethune, Lady Brabourne, St Xaviers should come forward and take up the job of passing on their values to other colleges through seminars or other interactive sessions.

"Excellence should not be confined within your own boundaries. You have to go beyond and pass it over to rural colleges also," the minister said.

Chatterjee also mentioned the first lady graduate from the state — Kadambini Ganguly — who was from Bethune, the first women doctorate Asima Chattopadhyay, who was also from Bethune and lauded the efforts of the institution in India's freedom struggle.

Chatterjee maintained that the government is making serious efforts to raise the level of higher education in the state and has started 42 new universities and 6,500 higher secondary schools in the state since 2011 after the Trinamool Congress government took over. "The enrolment ratio that was 11.92 percent in the year 2011 has gone up to 20 percent now."

The minister also stressed on collective force of the teachers, administrators, non-teaching staff and students to earn a good reputation of an institution and remarked that Bethune has set a precedence in this regard.