College Street: Calcutta University wants to recruit full-time placement officers who will try and persuade prospective employers to take part in campus interviews in large numbers, the decision coming two weeks after students on the Rajabazar campus protested poor placements.

Officials said the university planned to recruit three full-time placement officers. "The authorities want to wrap up the recruitment before the first BTech batch under the four-year curriculum graduates next year," an official said.

Placement-related activities in the university are now coordinated by a junior office superintendent.

"We need to have placement officers to attract companies to the campus. We are keen on recruiting placement officers because the first batch of four-year BTech students will pass out soon. A better placement record will obviously help us draw more bright students to the programme," vice-chancellor Sonali Chakravarti Banerjee said.

The university has sought the higher education department's permission to create three posts of placement officer. It has informed the department that it is willing to forgo three posts of scientific officer in lieu of having an equal number of placement officers.

"After going through records we have found that the university had created five posts of scientific officer way back in 2009. No one has yet been recruited. We want to surrender three of the five posts if the government allows us to recruit three placement officers," the VC said.

Sources said the VC had asked deputy registrar Shantanu Pal to speak to the higher education department on the creation of the posts.

Asked about the university's placement cell, which is run by a junior office superintendent, Chakravarti Banerjee said: "Students are not happy with the role being played by the cell. So, we want to have full-time officers to take care of placement issues."

The university had wanted to appoint scientific officers in the hope that they would help the authorities get funds from the department of science and technology.

"But nothing has been done all these years. In fact, many of us were not even aware that such posts existed. The authorities have been realistic in requesting the higher education department to convert three posts of scientific officer to that of placement officer," an official said.

The demonstration on the Rajabazar science college campus at the start of April was mostly held by MTech students. A few BTech students joined the protest, too.

When Metro asked whether the agitation had prompted the university to decide on recruiting placement officers, Chakravarti Banerjee said: "We had started working on the issue much earlier."