139-year-old St Joseph’s College to become varsity

The state government on Monday tabled a Bill in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly to upgrade the historic St Joseph’s College, one of Bengaluru’s oldest degree colleges, into a university.

The St Joseph’s University Bill was tabled by Deputy Chief Minister CN Ashwath Narayan, the higher education minister.

According to the Bill, the new university will be set up under a public-private partnership funded by the state and centre. The initial outlay required to set up the university is estimated to be Rs 55 crore of which the Centre will provide Rs 33 crore (60%) and the state government Rs 22 crore (40%).

Started in 1882 by the Foreign Missions Society of Paris, St Joseph’s College counts former Supreme Court Chief Justice H L Dattu, spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, nuclear scientist Raja Ramanna and many others as alumni. It became a first-grade college in 1926 and was taken over by the Jesuit Society (Bangalore Jesuit Educational Society) in 1937. The college became autonomous in 2005 and bagged the Centre of Excellence tag in 2014.

The Bill states that the proposal to upgrade St Joseph’s College into a university was approved by the MHRD under the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) 2.0.

“This public-private partnership university focuses on to promote and undertake the advancement of applied university in arts, humanities, social sciences, science, engineering and technology, management, education, religious studies, philosophy, languages and allied sectors and foster industry and market-relevant studies, research and innovation...(sic)” the Bill states.