Keep politics off Presi: Ex-principal

Updated on: Thursday, September 02, 2010

Is the new Presidency University going to be just another addition to the state’s institutes of higher learning? To be more precise, is it going to be yet another much politicised body with little room for merit and excellence? All these fears kept doing the rounds at the governing body meeting of the Presidency College on Tuesday as the college transforms into a university.

Members like former college principal Amal Mukhopadhyay lost their cool when economist and governing body president Amiya Bagchi, known for his proximity to the ruling CPM, refused to allow such “unsavoury discussions”. Mukhopadhyay was even about to stage a walkout in protest against such “objectionable behaviour”. However, acting principal Amitava Chatterjee persuaded his predecessor to stay back and also requested the governing body president to give Mukhopadhyay a hearing since the former principal had been working for the uplift of the college.

“I said the campus should do away with party politics of any kind. Students’ unions are fine, but they should be like the ones in the IITs and IIMs, delinked from the politics outside,” Mukhopadhyay said. The former principal also stressed the need of teaching in English as the level of the language was poor among students. He argued that teachers in a world-class institute should not be allowed to take classes in Bengali as was the case in some classes earlier. Some students were even allowed to write answers in Bengali. “This should stop immediately if the university wants to grow as a world-class institute,” Mukhopadhyay said.

Some other members also expressed their reservations over the manner in which persons having close connections with the ruling CPM have been selected as teachers in the colleges and universities of the state. They complained that excellence took a back seat in many cases and the priority was on party loyalty.

Keep politics off Presi: Ex-principal

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