Shimla, November 5
“Non Nobis Solumn” (Not for ourselves alone) is the proud motto of Bedians, and keeping with this dictum, the Congregation of Jesus and Mary which runs St Bede’s is determined to continue providing quality education in the college.
“We will never close the college however hard we have to work,” says St Bede’s principal Sister Molly Abraham, who admits she does not know how she will run the institution after the state government’s decision to cut its grant-in-aid from 95 per cent to 50.
“We shall make our own strategy to survive,” says Abraham, who claims it is girls from Himachal Pradesh, who form as much as 90 per cent of the total 1,200 strong strength of the college, who will suffer in case of any fee hike.
It seems the college may involve its alumni to make good the loss of around Rs 1 crore, following the cut in grant.
The state government feels the college could take the help of its distinguished alumni, which includes former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh’s wife Pratibha Singh, former Punjab Chief Minister’s wife Preneet Kaur and actor Preity Zinta among others. It has also assured the institution of all help in acquiring affiliations for more self-financing courses, which could be used to generate funds.
The institution, however, feels that the government needs to do more. K.D. Singh, who heads the chemistry department, informed that the college had applied for the PGDCA and BSc (bio-technology) courses in March this year, but the government was still to clear the case. “If this is not done quickly we may not be able to start these courses from the next session also,” he said.
Even the BBA and BCA courses, which are in their third year, are not doing well. The college presently has 40 seats in the BBA course and 20 seats in the BCA course. Some of these seats are lying vacant and a recent HP University decision to grant it 20 more seats in both courses in August did not have any impact. Anuja Sharma, who heads the English department, says “how can we generate funds immediately. They could have staggered the reduction in order to allow us time to generate our own resources”.
The college principal maintains that that it is a myth that the institution is for the rich alone and says that a large number of its students are from ordinary backgrounds. Abraham says when education for girls had been made free by the state, how could it ask the college to charge three to four times more from the students?
The government, which has around Rs 5 crore in its kitty to distribute as grant-in-aid presently, is unwilling to consider a staggered reduction for St Bede’s. “If I had an option I would,” says secretary, education, P.C.Dhiman, adding that St Bede’s could approach the High Court if it feels it should be considered as a special case.
The government is reluctant to spend more on higher education due to financial crunch and is presently even allowing the Parent Teacher Association of the college to hire teachers at one third of the UGC scales. This method is rampant in primary and secondary education. With a total loan of Rs 24,000 crore, it pays an interest of Rs 3,000 crore annually on this loan. Its salary and pension benefits come to around Rs 4,500 crore annually and it usually ends up taking a loan of around Rs 3,000 crore every year to meet its deficit.
