Feb. 23: Environmental science will soon become a part of the curriculum of all city colleges.

In accordance with a Supreme Court directive, the University Grants Commission (UGC) had recently ordered the state government to take appropriate steps to implement a compulsory course on environmental science at every level in college education.

Among the city colleges, only Lalit Chandra Bharali College has been teaching the university-prescribed course on environmental awareness till date. Cotton College and Pragjyotish College have decided to set up the department this year.

According to Dulal Goswami of the department of environmental science, Gauhati University, “This step to introduce environment as a subject is very important and each individual should know about it.”

The first batch of post-graduate students in environmental science, Gauhati University, will pass out this year.

“This will be the first batch of environment studies students in the Northeast,” said Goswami. The university had introduced environment science as a research subject in 1982 and as a post-graduate study in 2001.

Principal of Cotton College, Udayaditya Bharali, said the college proposes to start the subject from this year. “We have sent a proposal to the state government and also decided on the syllabus. It will be started as an elective subject at the graduation level which may later be introduced as an honours subject,” he added.

The first class of this department will start from July this year with 16 to 18 students. “It is a positive approach and I hope it will help students,” said Vinod Barua, professor of zoology, Cotton College.

However, Cotton College will not have any permanent faculty for the department. According to college authorities, resource persons from physics, chemistry, geology, zoology, botany and geography will handle the course material, with Barua as the head of the department.

Pragjyotish College also proposes to start the subject during this session. Principal of the college, Dayananda Pathak, said: “We recently held a meeting of the governing body, which decided to introduce a permanent faculty for the subject.”

Two other eminent institutions of higher education, Handique College and the Indian Institute of Technology, have not yet decided to introduce the subject in their curriculum.

The National Council of Education, Research and Training (NCERT) is implementing the subject at the school level.

However, both Goswami and Barua talked about public participation to make the campaign for environmental awareness a success.