Calcutta University plans to involve colleges offering postgraduate courses, including those seeking autonomy, in framing syllabi, setting question papers, and evaluating answer scripts at the master’s level, vice-chancellor Ashutosh Ghosh said.

The university intends to group colleges that have demanded the restoration of their autonomy at the postgraduate level and involve them in academic exercises, he said.

“I will soon meet the principals of these colleges with the proposal to cluster them so they can be involved in the academic exercises,” the VC said.

“Over time, I plan to meet the heads of all the colleges where postgraduate courses are run, to ask them whether they want the autonomy to be restored at the master’s level or would they persist with the existing model. This will help us get the exact count of the colleges seeking autonomy and decide accordingly,” VC Ghosh told Metro.

The proposals will be discussed at a meeting of the university’s syndicate, the VC said.

Some colleges, such as Lady Brabourne, Scottish Church, and Ashutosh, have already urged CU for autonomy at the postgraduate level — a mechanism that existed until 2018.

Several college heads recently said the university’s 2018 decision to take complete control of postgraduate exams and syllabi has weakened academic standards.

Before that, colleges enjoyed full authority over their PG programmes: from designing their own syllabi through their boards of studies, setting their own question papers, and appointing evaluators they deemed suitable.

Accompanied by some of the teachers, Lady Brabourne College principal Siuli Sarkar met VC Ghosh in November to press for PG autonomy.

On December 4, Scottish Church College wrote to the VC, seeking the reinstatement of the autonomous status previously granted to the college’s postgraduate department, saying greater autonomy would lead to institutional growth.

When CU introduced PG programmes in colleges in the early 2000s, it allowed the institutes to run the courses independently.

CU registrar Debasis Das earlier told this newspaper that the autonomy was withdrawn because some colleges manipulated evaluations so their students secured high marks and admitted students beyond the sanctioned strength in the name of autonomy.

The colleges demanding restoration of autonomy allege that CU is generalising all colleges and penalising even those that have been conducting postgraduate courses transparently and successfully.

“The university should run an academic audit to check whether the colleges are abusing their autonomy and then take corrective steps. I do not recall the university ever doing that,” said Madhumanjari Mandal, the principal of Scottish Church College, a minority institution.

“Instead of having the necessary checks and balances, there was a blanket withdrawal of autonomy, which allowed for curricular innovation, essential to attract bright students in an environment increasingly dominated by private colleges armed with flexible and modern approaches,” she said.

The VC said they were “planning to introduce” the academic audits.

Siuli Sarkar of Lady Brabourne College said: “It is not clear why colleges like ours should be made to suffer because a section of colleges misused the autonomy.”

When it had autonomy, Lady Brabourne engaged subject experts such as Sobhanlal Dattagupta (political science) and Amitabha Raychaudhuri (physics) to incorporate contemporary topics in the syllabus.

“This allowed us to make the curriculum attractive, helping us to attract bright students. The lack of autonomy has diluted the academic standards,” said Sarkar, also a member of the CU syndicate.