With no VC, teachers or campus, Darjeeling Hills University is dying a slow death

NEW DELHI: “My future seems so bleak now. I don’t know what to do next,” said Ankit (name changed), a third-semester postgraduate student of mathematics at Darjeeling Hills University (DHU), West Bengal, which has neither teachers nor classrooms to teach in. The DHU has left all its students in a similar state.

A public state university established with much fanfare under the West Bengal’s Greenfield University Act 2018, DHU started operating from November 2021 under its first vice-chancellor Subiresh Bhattacharya. As the VC of North Bengal University (NBU), Bhattacharya had the additional charge of DHU, temporarily located in the NBU campus. Since then, the university has had no permanent VC, teachers, administrative staff or campus and is, in effect, dying a slow death.

The first batch was admitted late in November 2021 and not in September as is standard. This led to agitation and Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee herself had to go to Darjeeling in October 2021 to pacify and reassure local leaders and educationists.

A website was created for DHU under the supervision of NBU and classes started from January 2022, said a teacher on conditions of anonymity. A few months later in September 2022, derailing all plans, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested Bhattacharya in connection with the West Bengal teacher recruitment scam. Bhattacharya had been the chairman of the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) when the scam had allegedly taken place.

Also readFrom maths to the wandering mind: What IKS centres are studying

DHU VC appointment

Bhattacharya’s arrest left both the universities leaderless. Om Prakash Mishra was appointed interim VC of both NBU and DHU in September 2022 for three months, until the end of December 2022. A teacher who did not want to be named said, “Mishra could not continue for long due to the tussle between the government of West Bengal and Raj Bhavan on who should be appointed vice-chancellors of state universities”.

West Bengal and Kerala have been witnessing intense struggle for control between opposition-party-run state governments and central-government-appointed governors.

However, Mishra was granted multiple extensions but only for NBU and continued to lead it till May 2023.

From January 2023, DHU went without a VC until March 24, 2023, when Prem Poddar was appointed interim VC of DHU. He continued as VC till June 24, 2023, after which DHU has not had another VC – interim or otherwise.

Students in DHU

Since it was launched in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, DHU had begun with online classes. It offered six disciplines – English, mathematics, Nepali, mass communication, history and political science.

Six professors of NBU were given the additional responsibility of being course coordinators and identifying college professors to teach the students online. Admission for the first-year postgraduate programmes took place efficiently and students appeared for examinations too.

Admissions for the PG programmes in 2021 and 2022 were glitch-free, mainly because DHU had VCs, a temporary campus in NBU whose administrative staff took care of the fledgling institution as well.

The professors were paid in the first year. The payments stopped from the second year, or the third semester onwards. Problems also cropped up when the first batch of students had to write their examinations in the fourth semester. Online classes could not continue for long as educational institutions had opened up and COVID restrictions were withdrawn. Special permission was required from the University Grants Commission (UGC) and explanations as to why classes and exams were still being held online.

To salvage the situation, the six coordinators decided to teach DHU students offline in NBU when NBU’s own enrollees were on summer vacation. Students were taught offline for six days just to show that classes were held offline at the temporary campus of NBU. “There was no other way. It was so great of the teachers that they utilised the summer break for teaching us,” said another student. Now, students awaiting their results wonder if their marksheets – they have only soft copies or digital versions —will be accepted wherever they apply in future.

Also readUGC Category-1 Autonomy: State universities plan new courses but struggle with funds

Permanent DHU campus

Still operating on the NBU campus, offline classes for DHU may not even be feasible. Manoranjan Singha, assistant professor, department of mathematics, North Bengal University, said that teachers are concerned. “But how will we proceed to the permanent campus without any instruction from the department of higher education in West Bengal,” he said, adding: “If we take online classes and suddenly we are told that the classes are not valid, what do we do next?”

On the land in Mungpoo, which is where the permanent DHU campus is supposed to be, there is only a building with no hostel. It is also in a remote area with no residences nearby for the 150 students to even stay even as paying guests. There is also no police station or medical facility. There is no way a student can get accommodation in that area, said Singha.

Three months ago, in late 2023, teachers had written to the department of higher education, West Bengal, seeking a solution but received no reply. They wrote again in mid-February. “Being a teacher, we can take classes without any honorarium, but where do we take the classes?” asked Singha.

Also readNEHU Colleges: How NEP 2020 is adding strain to an under-resourced system

DHU now

The university is without any staff and no NBU teacher is ready to take online or offline classes till they receive instructions from the state’s higher education department. Classes in DHU have been suspended and no admissions were made in 2023-2024.

“We want a vice chancellor immediately, a permanent VC can take action and solve the problems we are facing,” said Ankit from Kalimpong district, who now regrets taking admission in DHU. “I had applied to several universities but this was the first university I got an admission offer from. So I took admission in this university without realising what was in store,” he said.

There have been no classes for six months. “Some students are enjoying fellowship, but if classes continue to be suspended, they will not get the fellowship next year,” said a teacher.

Recently, the students protested, demanding valid certificates and a proper website for the university with the logo that the students, with Poddar, had made. They also demand regular offline classes, but said they would settle for online classes if permitted by UGC.

On the land in Mungpoo, which is where the permanent DHU campus is supposed to be, there is only a building with no hostel. It is also in a remote area with no residences nearby for the 150 students to stay even as paying guests. There is also no police station or medical facility.