Calcutta, Dec. 20: Thirty colleges will be set up by the next academic session with a focus on subjects that are more likely to fetch jobs in new-age industries.

Higher education minister Sudarshan Roychowdhury today said the colleges will offer courses in “emerging subjects” so that the degrees stand the students in good stead in the future. “The industry scene in Bengal is changing. And graduates need to be groomed well for the job market,” the minister said.

Officials in the higher education department said the government has been stressing the need for courses in biotechnology, microbiology, molecular biology, business administration and computer science.

Roychowdhury said if Bengal is unable to produce “graduates good enough for new industries” that would come up in the next few years, their jobs would be taken away by candidates from other states.

The chief minister had rapped Roychowdhury’s predecessor Satyasadhan Chakraborty apparently for not giving adequate importance to “modern subjects”.

At a symposium on “In quest of excellence, industry, education and the media” — organised by the Netaji Subhas Open University — the higher education minister today said many of the new colleges will come up in Purulia, Bankura and north Bengal.

The chief minister wants the new central university to be set up in north Bengal.

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has written to the Centre making such a request, Roychowdhury said.

Bengal now has one central university —Visva-Bharati.