Puri student death: Teachers doubled as ad hoc hostel wardens in college

Tue, Nov 3 05:59 AM

Lack of a full-time hostel superintendent and additional burden on teachers with meagre remuneration could be the reason behind the tragic death of three students of Kalyani Government Engineering College.

On October 29, around 102 students from the college's Rishi Bankim Hostel had left for Puri without informing the college authorities. On Saturday, two students — Sayan Barui (21), a second-year student from Katwa and Ranajit Singh, a third-year student from Kharagpur — drowned.

The college authorities had no clue about the trip and learnt about it only after the incident of drowning came to light. The hostel of the engineering college had little supervision as it did not have a full-time superintendent and teachers were given ad-hoc charge of looking after the hostel with a meagre allowance of Rs 150. The incentive of an assistant hostel superintendent was Rs 75 per month.

Looking after the hostel is an additional responsibility for the teachers of the government college besides their usual teaching, research and evaluation assignments. 

Now, the teachers association of the Government Engineering College has demanded that the government should either dole out incentives or appoint non-teachers as permanent hostel superintendent.

"It is unjustified on the part of the government to expect that teachers to take classes, do research work and discharge an additional duty of hostel superintendent and that too without any extra incentive," said Diptesh Chaterjee, general secretary of West Bengal Government Engineering College Teachers Association.

"Teachers are not willing to take up the responsibility of a hostel superintendent. It is very difficult to manage around 200 students without adequate incentive," said a hostel superintendent of a North Bengal engineering college.

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