Guess where Bengal, once the unquestioned leader in higher education, stands among 35 states and Union Territories today? An embarrassing 19th, says the latest national survey on education by the Union ministry of human resources development.
Forget Delhi, Maharashtra or the southern states, we have barely scraped past Orissa, Bihar and the north-east. Even Jharkhand is ahead of Bengal because it is able to send a huge number of candidates to the IITs and IISERs.
Till the '70s, Bengal's educational institutions, especially Calcutta University and its affiliated colleges, set examples for the rest of the country. But in the three decades after that, there was a steady decline under the Left Front government, which politicised higher education and ruined it. When most recruitments, from the vice-chancellor to the peon, were politically motivated, merit was bound to be strangled. A mediocre faculty can only beget generations of mediocre students, say educationists.
The state saw how despite the erstwhile chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee wanting to award his alma mater autonomy, Alimuddin Street gave the thumbs down on the excuse that it would dilute the quality of teaching. Then, the CPM-led government teachers' association revolted against Bhattacharjee. They were scared because most of them do not have a PhD or publications in journals and would not stand a chance when the positions were thrown open for fresh university recruitments.
St Xavier's, by dint of the fact that it is a minority-run institution, wrested its autonomy six years ago and has proved that freedom can be a catalyst to quality. The college has upgraded its syllabi so much that it is miles ahead of what Calcutta University sets for its colleges.
In BCom, for instance, the CU syllabus was completely negligent of maths, because of which the students faltered in market analysis. Concepts such as probability and partial derivatives were not there at all. "We have factored them in our modified syllabus," said Gyan Chakraborti, a maths teacher at St Xavier's.
Indranil Bose, teacher of political science, said: "The CU syllabus has been modified to include topics like globalization and the WTO regime in foreign policy." Father Felix Raj, principal, said that the marks of their students have improved by 15% since autonomy.
Educationists feel that lack of discipline among students and teachers is a major cause behind this degradation. "At Jadavpur University, at least one month is lost every year because of student agitation, not to talk of colleges like Bangabasi, Ashutosh College and Surendranath College that turn into warzones with political parties inciting clashes. It's bizarre but students protest if teachers ask them to write their exams on time or attend classes. Can you expect such pandemonium in the IITs?" asked a senior JU teacher.
"We need to take the bull by the horns and use our entire might to stem the rot. There is much to learn from campuses like St Stephen's, the IITs and the IIMs," said state higher education minister, Bratya Basu.
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