UNESCO to declare Kolkata’s Visva Bharat world’s first living heritage university

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If everything goes well, Visva-Bharati University, which was founded in 1921 by Rabindranath Tagore, will soon get the ‘heritage’ tag from UNESCO to become the world’s first living heritage university.

Referring to this, Visva-Bharati University Vice-Chancellor Bidyut Chakraborty stated that the university is going to be declared a heritage university. He added that it will be the world’s first heritage for the first time in the world, a living university, which is still functioning, is going to get the heritage tag from UNESCO.

The university is spread across 1,130 acres of land, and was named after Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore when it was founded in 1921, until Visva-Bharati Society was registered as an organisation in May 1922. As per the reports, the Nobel Laureate donated some of his property, including land and a bungalow, to the society.

It served as a college until Independence, whereas the institution was given the status of Central University in 1951 through a central Act. The first vice-chancellor of this institution was Rathindranath Tagore, who was the son of Rabindranath Tagore.

As per the records, Rabindranath believed in open-air education and introduced that system at the university, which is still there. The present vice chancellor further added that there is no other university in the world where cultural experiments were done continuously.

Reportedly, the development comes 11 years after the Union Culture Ministry appealed for the status of UNESCO heritage site for Santiniketan (Visva Bharati), and secure recognition for Tagore’s cultural ark in the run-up to his 150th birth anniversary.

source: India Times