Rangapara College
Institutional Distinctiveness
The vision and mission statement of Rangapara College states ‘to transform lives and serve society by the participation of rural students in higher education.’ The institution has established its entire approach on the basis of the same to provide quality higher education to all including the socially, economically and academically disadvantaged students.
The distinctiveness of the college is its multilingual and multicultural students’ population or Linguistic & Cultural Diversity. Situated in the midst of lash green of tea gardens, the majority of the students of the college are wards of Tea labourers and the tribal community especially from Bodo community of the surrounding villages. The tea garden labourers, mostly known as tea tribes were brought by the British from different states of India like Bihar, West Bengal, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. Besides, the area is inhabited by different communities like indigenous Assamese people, Bengali, Nepali and Hindi speaking populace. In view of the multi speaking populace, the college has five language and literature departments viz. Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Hindi and English. All these language departments offer honours, generic and elective courses in the respective languages. Besides, Department of Bodo and Department of English offers spoken Bodo and Spoken English respectively.
From 2020, M.A. in Hindi has been introduced in the college. The college publishes a multilingual magazine where students can publish their poems, short stories, articles etc. Moreover, students of each of the language departments publish wall magazines in their own language. Department of Bodo publishes an annual multilingual Students’ Research Journal. Colourful cultural procession reflecting the tradition and culture of different communities is a regular feature of the annual college week of the college. Besides, the language departments celebrate different cultural events at different times. Department of Assamese observes Bihu festival where students from different communities take part. Department of Bengali observes Sarodotsav on the eve of Durga Puja. Hindi Department celebrates the Hindi Divas every year. Department of Bodo observes the Christmas festival. In each and every celebration, all the students of the college take parts. This multilingual and multicultural student population has created an atmosphere of unity in diversity leading to a multicultural environment in the college which is an important ingredient for development in making the state of Assam one of the states amongst the first five developed states of the country and thus contributing to the development, integrity and unity of the country. Another important aspect of the multilingual student population of the college is its girl students. The girl students of the college are 49.42% in 2020-21 and 48.99% in 2021-22. The girl students also belong to various communities speaking different languages but contributing to the college community as a whole with their multiple culture and language.
The College promotes research and development for faculty and students based on the local communities. Some projects have been identified and the college is sponsoring them to encourage their enthusiasm for research.