Significant Achievements of Higher Education Department in the past 4 years

• 9 State-aided Universities were set up to expand the spatial spread of Higher Education in the State. Under The West Bengal Govt. Policy & Guidelines for setting up of Private Universities 2013, 8 Private Universities have been set up.
• There were 36 Government Colleges in May 2011. In the last 4 years, the State Government has set up 31 new Government Colleges, of which 28 are already functioning, including the first Hindi medium Government General Degree College at Banarhat, Jalpaiguri.
• A new Government General Degree College for women will start functioning from July 2016 in Ekbalpur area, Kolkata in addition to the two newly set up and already functioning Women’s colleges viz. Sister Nibedita Govt. General Degree College for Girls at Hastings and Govt. General Degree College at Rajarhat. Setting up of colleges for women highlights the Government Policy of inclusive development of women and women empowerment.
• To improve the quality of teaching, 1545 teaching posts, 43 Officers and 1022 non-teaching posts were created in the State aided Universities, Government Colleges and Government aided Colleges in the last 4 years.
• 126 vacant posts of Principals and 1907 posts of Assistant Professor in Government-aided Colleges have been filled up by the West Bengal College Service Commission. The West Bengal Public Service Commission took up recruitment of 1,149 vacant and newly created posts of Assistant Professors by December 2015; it had recommended more than 900 candidates for appointment in Government Colleges.
• As a result of the huge expansion in higher education the Gross Enrolment Ratio (G.E.R.) which was 12.6 in 2011 rose dramatically to 17.5 in 2014 (as per the GOI’s All India Survey on Higher Education). More than 4 lakh new seats have been created.
• A major e-government initiative was taken to bring in greater transparency and fairness in admissions to all the undergraduate and postgraduate level courses by making admissions online in all Government and Government-aided higher education institutions from the academic session 2015-16
• The West Bengal State Higher Education Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act 2013 was enacted with a mandate to provide a 17% reservation for OBC students, to be achieved over a six year period starting from 2014-15, without reducing the total number of seats available for the General Category students. In 2014-15, the very first year of implementation, a total of 59,612 OBC students were admitted, which was 10.6% of all students admitted in the state’s UG and PG level courses.
• Under the Vivekananda Merit-cum-Means Scholarship Scheme, which provides financial assistance to meritorious students belonging to the economically weaker sections of the society, scholarships amounting to Rs. 170.04 crore were granted to 1,78,003 students.
• All female students taking admission in colleges 18-19 years of age have benefitted fro, Kanyasree Prakalpa which provides incentive to female students to enter the arena of higher education;
• The Biswa Bangla Scholarship Scheme has been instituted at SOAS (School of Oriental & African Studies), University of London for two Scholarships at the Master’s level and one at Ph.D level for students from the State.
• 75 colleges have received NAAC Accreditation of which 22 have received ‘A’ Grade and 53 have received ‘B’ grade. LOI has been accepted for another 46 colleges which are going to be Re-Accredited out of which two received ‘A’ Grade and 44 received ‘B’ Grade in the previous cycle.
• The Higher Education Department is actively spear-heading the Rashtriya Uchhatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) in West Bengal and colleges and Universities are being highly benefitted by the endeavour
• N.S.S and Sports are some of the other activities organised for the colleges by the Higher Education Department and Education Directorate