Student unrest has led to vacant seats in JU: Partha

Kolkata: State Education minister Partha Chatterjee on Tuesday attributed the vacant seats of Jadavpur University to the recent student unrest in the campus.

"23 percent of the seats of Jadavpur University are vacant because of student unrest," Chatterjee said during a discussion at the state Assembly, while tabling five Bills, including setting up of four new universities and renaming one.

It may be mentioned that the admission process has come to an end at JU and still, 70 seats in engineering in the varsity are lying vacant. Chatterjee's remarks came after CPI-M MLA Tanmoy Bhattacharya alleged that there is poor infrastructure and dearth of faculties in the newly set up universities across the state.

"Your government (erstwhile Left Front) had not set up such a huge number of universities during your tenure and so your MLAs are jealous of the our government's success. Academicians from other states are coming to teach in the colleges and universities of Bengal," Chatterjee retorted.

It may be mentioned that the Education minister was referring to the student movement in the varsity against the university's decision to scrap admission test for six Humanities subjects in the undergraduate level. The university has subsequently yielded to the pressure from students and brought back admission tests.

The minister said that apart from a huge rise in budgetary allocation in the education sector, the enrollment has been raised from 12.5 lakh in 2011 to 18.5 lakh, due to the various student-centric schemes and scholarships.

The Murshidabad University Bill, The Alipurduar University Bill, The Greenfield University Bill and The Dakshin Dinajpur University Bill were passed in the state Assembly.

"The universities will help in bringing the economically backward classes under the ambit of higher education. All colleges of the concerned districts will be affiliated under the respective new universities," Chatterjee said.

The Purba Medinipur University (Amendment) Bill was also passed. The university has been renamed as Mahatma Gandhi University, to commemorate the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.