BESU students boycott classes over poor placement

Mou Chakraborty
Kolkata, February 1, 2007

Unhappy with placements, post-graduate students of Bengal Engineering & Science University (BESU), Shibpur, stayed away from the classrooms on Thursday and threatened to continue the boycott for an indefinite period if their problem is not addressed within a day.
Of the 225 post-graduate students, only 20 per cent have found placement till now. “While the university has already placed 97 per cent of the undergraduate students, why are they discriminating against the post-graduate students? We are more qualified and hence it is only natural that we should better placements than our juniors,” a post-graduate student said.
Registrar Bhaswati Mitra, professor in charge of students’ affairs Lieutenant Colonel A. K. Ghosh and professor in charge of training and placement Manash Shanyal met the agitating students, who sat on a dharna in the main lobby, but the students were not satisfied with the outcome.
The university authorities admit that the demand for placement is not unjustified, but plead helplessness. “It is true that post-graduate students are not getting good placements as compared to undergraduate students but then the market demand is higher for undergraduate students. We always try to ensure the best of placements for all student and we have assured the post-graduate students that all of them will be placed,” Mitra said.
Most companies who visit the campus for placements set 60 per cent marks in the Class X and XII examinations as one of the minimum eligibility criteria. It is here that most of the post-graduate students are disqualified. While the undergraduate students have to clear WBJEE for admission to BESU and therefore usually have 60 per cent marks in the Class X and XII exams, post-graduate students complete BTech or an equivalent exam, MCA, MBA or MSc and qualify GATE to study in BESU. Moreover some post-graduate students also cross the maximum age limit for job offers, which is 27 years.
“The post-graduate students forget that their department is only eight years old where as the undergraduate department is 150 years old. Most of us have scored above 60 per cent throughout our academic career while they have not,” said Abhigyan Bera, a fourth-year undergraduate student of BESU. “If the companies hire post-graduate students, they too have to spend less money on training them.”
The post-graduate students have sought a written assurance from the university that their placements will not be neglected. Or else, they would boycott classes indefinitely from Friday.
“We really do not know whether the students will boycott classes again from Friday because there has been no official communication from their end. Even on Thursday, they did not inform us before starting the agitation,” Mitra said.
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