BESU to IIEST: Politics won and Academics failed

The governments at the centre and the state finally seem to compromise and find a mutually agreeable psotion on the issue of upgradation of BESU into an Idian Institute of Engineering science & Technology. IIEST, Shibpur, as it will now be called once the IIEST bill passes the Parliament and comes out enacted, will have to take 50% students from the state and will have state's representative(s) on the board of management.

Higher Education Minister of West bengal reportedly described it as a victory for the state (read a victory for a coalition partner).

So, another Institute of National Important (INI) is born to the state and hopefully BESU's signboards will change once again in a month or two. New batches of students will come through new national level entrance test and will pass out as engineering graduates or postgraduates in due course. The people of the state and students and stakeholders of the institute will become used to this new model of quota-based INI and will soon forget to remmber that this institute once had an entrance system which didn't have any reservation for the state's students.

And here lies the politics. When the institute was under the state's control, it didn't need any reservation even though the WBJEE was , and still is, a national level entrance test (and this is what the WB Govt often likes to speak of and boast of). And when the call came for its handover to the centre for a greater national need, the state preferred to seek a quota for the state and that too to the extent of 75%. The teachers, thouh, like to have the best students in their classes. And, for a new brand of INIs that is thought to emerge as one of the best brands of rsearch-intensive instutues of higher learning, any quota in the entrance system can only deter the growth pace of the brand. However, the insiders of the institute has to remain satisfied with the fact that political mentors eventualy could decide on the upgradation plan in the first year of the XI plan itself, allowing the implementation to take place over the rest of the plan period.

July 15, Switzerland