THE MAMATA BANERJEE-LED Trinamool Congress (TMC) government, which swept to power in West Bengal (pop. 91 million) in May 2011 ending 34 years of Left rule in the state, was expected to be the harbinger of much needed paribartan (change) in all sectors of the economy, especially education. However with members of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) having infiltrated and thoroughly entrenched themselves in powerful students and teachers unions, the TMC government has had little success in reforming West Bengal’s 374 government colleges and 19 universities defined by continuous campus violence, mass copying during examinations and huge faculty vacancies.
Nevertheless the TMC, now in its final year in office, has made a positive contribution to higher education in West Bengal by facilitating the promotion of a clutch of internationally benchmarked private universities, strictly verboten during the 34 years of rule of the CPM-led Left Front government (1977-2004). Early this year (February), The Neotia University (TNU), established by a special Act of the West Bengal assembly, became the fifth private university to begin operations in the state after Techno India University, Salt Lake; Seacom Skills University, Santiniketan; Adamas University, Barasat, and JIS University, Agarpara, North 24-Parganas.
Promoted by Harshavardhan Neotia, a well-known real estate tycoon in Kolkata, and sited on a 50-acre campus in the outlying South-24 Parganas district, 40 km from Kolkata, TNU will admit its first batch of 300-400 students in July. TNU will offer courses in performing arts and visual arts, liberal arts, languages (Spanish, Mandarin and English), manufacturing technology — robots and automotive manufacturing, infotainment — animation and video game design, energy studies, marine engineering and nautical sciences, and biotechnology. Well-known personalities such as West Bengal governor M.K. Narayanan, former UGC chairman Dr. Hari Gautam and eminent vocalist Pt. Vijay Kichlu are on its board of governors.
To realise his dream of establishing TNU as West Bengal’s top-ranked private university in short time, Neotia has assembled an impressive faculty headed by distinguished bioinformatics academic Dr. Ashok Kolaskar, former vice chancellor of the University of Pune and KIIT University, Bhubaneswar. “The university’s teaching pedagogy is based on experiential learning derived from industrial training, equipped laboratories and research-based projects, and our choice-based credit system allows students to learn subjects of their liking. The result is that our campus will provide space for cross-fertilisation of ideas, innovation and creativity in a disciplined manner,” promises Kolaskar.
The Neotia Group which already runs a technical institute on the campus, is set to develop TNU into a world class varsity. “We have already invested a sum of Rs.80 crore in the institute and plan to invest another Rs.200 crore in the next two-three years to build state-of-the-art infrastructure for TNU. Faculty from renowned foreign universities are expected to join TNU in the near future,” says Neotia, chairman of Ambuja Neotia Group. Tuition fees in TNU are modest by global standards and range from Rs.30,000-.1 lakh per year, steep compared with rock-bottom fees demanded by West Bengal’s crumbling public universities.
For Neotia, the big question is whether a sufficiently large number of middle class households accustomed to paying nominal tuition fees for substandard higher education, will be willing to pay relatively steep fees for high quality education.
Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata)