Xavier's, Presidency breaking new grounds

Kolkata, Aug 17 (UNI) Two of the leading educational institutions in the country--St Xavier's and Presidency College--are breaking new grounds in their own ways.

Having gained autonomy of August one, St Xavier's College is now on course to set sail across Atlantic. In contrast Presidency looks to bring the cosmic secrets right into their classrooms.

The missionary college has decided to enter into an MoU by 2006-end with two American universities--St John's for boys and St Benedicts for girls, for a students' exchange programme in Liberal Arts.

A seven-member delegation from both the universities, located in Minnesota, US, visited the city on August 14 expressing their interest to tie-up with an Indian college.

Asked upon why they selected St Xavier's, the delegation said they had met with some students from different departments of the college like English, Mass Communication, Sociology and Videography and were very happy to learn that the students had huge potential to do something different in their respective fields.

''We are an autonomous college and would face no difficulty to move forward with the deal,'' the Dean of the College said.

Explaining the selection procedure, he said, ''the students of the US university would be coming here for one semester through an examination conducted by us and would be provided with a marksheet and certificate after the completion of the programme and the same would be applicable for our students''.

The students here seem to be very excited with the deal as it would be giving them wide exposure, said a teacher of the college.

The city's oldest educational institution Presidency college would now conduct the course in collaboration with Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics(IUCAA), Pune.

A scientific team from IUCAA on their visit to the College found that it had all the requisite infrastructure to start the course, college officials said.

Principal of Presidency Mamata Roy said the college would also collaborate with M P Birla Institute of Fundamental Research.

Only ten students would be taken as of now on the merit basis, Mrs Roy added.

She further assured that the university would be having its own astronomy database and information centre for the convenience of the student researchers by 2007.

IUCCA would be funding the the information centre and bear the cost of the courses in masters level, IUCCA sources added.

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