St Xaviers College Kolkata to start Bengali Honours course

Updated on: Friday, May 11, 2012

There is a little bit of Rabindranath Tagore everywhere and more so in Kolkata. In keeping with this, St Xavier’s College (SXC) Kolkata is all set to start a Bengali Honours course in remembrance of their former student and vice president of alumni association in 1927. Rev Fr Dr J Felix Raj SJ, principal, SXC and president, St Xavier’s College (Calcutta) Alumni Association made the announcement at the college premises at a press meet on Monday, May 7. 

SXC also proposes to upgrade itself from a state-aided minority autonomous college to a state-aided minority unitary university. The think tank entrusted with the job of preparing the documents for application of upgradation includes Suranjan Das, vice chancellor, University of Calcutta; Sanjeev Goenka, industrialist; two senior teachers of the college; the rector of SXC and Snehasish Sur, media person along with Rev Fr Dr Raj as the chairperson of the committee.

About the Bengali Honours course Rev Fr Dr Raj said, “We want to keep the fees low since many middle-class Bengali families will want to enrol their wards into this course.” While Bratya Basu, minister of Education, government of West Bengal will be the chief guest at the inauguration, SXC also plans to stage a drama based on Maheshweta Devi’s Ajir on August 4 and 5, 2012, to usher in the course.

SXC will also incorporate more post graduate departments in their new campus that is due to take shape. SXC has been allotted 16 acres of land at Rajarhat by the government of West Bengal. Though they had initially wanted 50 acres and then came down to 25, the college is content with the allotment and plans to come up with a management school, engineering school and research centre for physical and social science at Rajarhat.

This allotment of land is in line with SXC’s proposal to become a university. Rev Fr Dr Raj averred, “With six acres of campus area at Park Street, six acres at EM Bypass allotted by the former government of West Bengal and the 16 acres at Rajarhat, we are sure to become a university of excellence.” He added that the EM Bypass campus will be the hub of mass communication and media research and he foresees a rich academic exchange between this institute and SRFTI situated there.
 
The proposal for upgradation to a university elucidates on the role of the faculty members, the numbers of schools and research centres SXC is planning to come up with and the profile of the present college.

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