Naysayers refuse to back out of anti-varsity stir

Updated on: Friday, December 11, 2009

Kolkata: Despite faltering, government college teachers have refused to give up on their opposition to the move to upgrade Presidency College to a university.

Even as a sizeable section of teachers — who had initially supported the agitation — backed out on Wednesday, the Government College Teachers’ Association (GCTA) has now decided to meet state higher education minister Sudarshan Roychoudhury on Friday and inform him about their reservations concerning the move.

Following a prolonged executive committee meeting on Thursday, GCTA claimed that they have not backed out from their opposition. “We have got continuous and steady response from government college teachers across the state. Virtually all government colleges are with us on the issue. So, there is no question of our moving away from the demand. A large section of teachers from Presidency College, too, are with us,” said Debashish Sarkar, the GCTA joint secretary. He said that a senior college teacher was present at the executive committee meeting.

A dialogue with the minister will begin soon, it was announced. “So far, we have merely been conferring among ourselves. It took a while for the opposition to gather momentum. Now that it has done so, we will have to meet the minister,” said Shyamal Basak, general secretary, GCTA.

GCTA had been left a divided house on Wednesday evening and the leadership was unable to chart out its
next course of action.

On Tuesday, the association had vowed not to let Presidency become a unitary university and demanded a university with all government colleges under its wing. According to the scheme that it had charted, Presidency College would just be a constituent college in this university.

GCTA maintained that all government colleges were united on the demand, for they believed that unitary universities were not conducive to the development of higher education. “The first phase of the signature campaign has just come to an end. We have got an overwhelming response from all over the state,” said Basak.

Presidency students, however, continued to celebrate their imminent university status. The college went into a cheerful mood with a fest on campus on Thursday.

Members of the students’ union were euphoric about the new status of the college. “This is a matter of pride. A few teachers may have their own stand on the issue but overall there has been no significant opposition within the college. The university status will lead to a marked improvement in terms of syllabus, teaching and marking of examination papers that haven’t been satisfactory under CU,” said Richa Gupta, general secretary of the SFI students’ union.

Naysayers refuse to back out of anti-varsity stir

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