Kolkata:
St Xavier's College in Kolkata will set up a finance laboratory over the next six months to help students undertake research in economics and accounting, Principal Rev Fr (Dr) Dominic Savio said Tuesday.All major databases in finance and accounting will be available in the lab, the first-of-its kind in the country, Savio said at a press meet Tuesday.
"The state-of-the-art lab will preempt the possibility of the students going anywhere else for collecting statistics. They can have access to a wide range of information and can update themselves with stock exchange data," he said. The principal also said the initiative will inspire students to visit libraries more often. The college will give three awards to students who were found to have spent a maximum number of hours at the library, he said.
"While students can also access library contents on their smartphones, tablets or laptops, we want to encourage them to physically visit the library and spend hours by instituting such an award," he maintained. The institute has installed an anti-plagiarism software to check unauthorised copying of dissertations, research papers, he added. The college will set up another academic building at its Raghabpur campus in South 24 Parganas district to cater to a greater number of students, Savio said.
"Almost 70 per cent students on the Raghabpur campus are girls. The second building is being set up to cater to a greater number of rural students, Apart from that, we also plan to start MA course in Bengali in the next academic year," he said. The principal also said that the college has decided to confer 'Nihil Ultra Award' on Jadavpur University Vice-Chancellor Prof Suranjan Das Bengal during its annual convocation ceremony on January 16 for his contribution in higher education.
