Presidency Mentor Group chairman Professor Sugata Bose today said he has requested chief minister Mamata Banerjee to dissolve the group as it has served its purpose.
The mentor group was formed by Mamata Banerjee in 2011 and was chartered to provide recommendations and a roadmap to establishing Presidency University as a pre-eminent institution of learning.
“Now that other statutory bodies of the university is functioning, we feel that our work is done,” Bose said in his address before the Vice Chancellor Anuradha Lohia, poet Sankha Ghosh and others.
Bose, an eminent historian, said, “We have sent the report of the Mentor Group to the chief minister.”
The mentor group has made several recommendations in the report to improve the academic and infrastructure of the university. There are several suggestions about the second campus as well. The reports states that the university should set up special outreach in Darjeeling district and the western districts, to recruit promising students of ST category. Further, according to the mentor’s group, they would like the university administration to explore with the Joint Entrance Board the possibility of conducting admission tests in two stages.
Additionally, the 19 page report of the mentor group congratulates the Vice- Chancellor and the Registrar of the university for “ maintaining academic attendance”.
However, the report also mentions,“ Too much authority is centralised or concentrated in the hands of a few administrators.” As a recommendation the mentor group has suggested,“ The university has to move towards faculty self-governance by providing departmental autonomy.”