Kolkata: Four college principals out of seven in the Calcutta University Syndicate — the highest decision-making body — will submit their resignations to the university authority in protest against recent exam-related decisions made without any consultation with the principals. Such mass resignations have been rare in recent times.
Calcutta University (CU) issued a notice regarding exam-related reforms for postgraduate examinations across CU colleges after a Syndicate meeting held on Feb 28. Following the notification, CU informed all affiliated colleges that the state-aided college teachers appointed by the college authorities to combat the teacher shortage would not take part in the examination process. This prompted four college principals in the CU syndicate — Jogesh Chandra Chowdhury College principal Sunanda Goenka, Bagbazar Women's College principal Anupama Chowdhury, Dhruba Chand College principal Satyabrata Sahu, and Rishi Bankim Sardar College principal Tilak Chatterjee — to decide to resign. The rest of the principals — from Netaji Nagar Day College, Girish Chandra College and Art College — are yet to make decisions.
The resigning principals said these teachers play a major role in conducting exams and evaluation. Goenka said, "These teachers play a major role from classroom teaching to conducting exams and evaluation. The university cannot impose such a decision on the colleges without consulting college principals and syndicate members. I strongly opposed it and decided to resign."
Asutosh College principal Manas Kabi said, "This is not a good gesture of the university to impose decisions that were taken by themselves."
New Alipore College principal Jaydeep Sarangi, who was nominated as a member of the board of disciplines, resigned on Friday evening.
The students of postgraduate science courses will write exams in common centres instead of home centres, which are now in the system. Bagbazar Women's College principal Anupama Chowdhury said, "We are not opposing this particular order, but we are raising questions on why such discrimination exists. When a university PG science student will attend exams at the home centres, why does a student studying PG in college have to write exams at the common centres? This is not expected from the centuries-old university."
Rishi Bankim Sardar College principal Tilak Chatterjee said, "The university formed an exam reform committee but not a single meeting was held, and a major decision was taken without any consultation with the principals. This is very unfortunate. The way Syndicate meetings have been conducted in recent times is very upsetting, where more than a hundred agendas were discussed, but in most cases, we, the Syndicate members, would have little knowledge. I don't want to be there as a member where I have the least involvement."
CU interim VC Santa Datta refused to make any comment since the university has not received resignation letters from the principals.
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