The Department of History was an integral part of the College from its very inception. From the official records of the College, we have found that the affiliation was granted up to I.A standard in History in 1938. At that time the principal of the institution was Dr. S. E. Rani Ghosh, the spiritual successor of Mrs. Sarala Ray and one of her most trusted 'education workers'. Under her guidance the college made rapid progress and History general classes were started from 1957. Initially teachers from Gokhale School took I.A and B.A classes as well. Ms. Bani Har Gupta was the Head of the Department. Honours in History commenced from August 1984 when Mrs. Panchali Dasgupta was the Department Head. Dr. Sharmi Chakraborty and Dr. Sarmila Sarkar joined in 1984 August and 1985 January respectively. Mr. Prashanta Kumar Pal joined in 2014 July. Ms Sanjukta De joined as a SACT (Category 1) lecturer in January, 2020.
Our Vision is to make History as a subject relevant in
empowering the girl students and to provide them with knowledge
tools to help shape the future with a context of what happened
in the past.
We encourage our girl students to think and act independently
and enable them to make informed choices by sharing our
knowledge and experiences. We educate them to be responsible
citizens and empathetic members of the society.
It is our objective to make our students self-sufficient -
Economically and academically. Keeping pace with the current
trend we encourage our students to read books and surf the web,
write projects and to make power points as well. Each of the
four faculty members work on our core strength - Dr Sharmi
Chakraborty prepares them for competitive type exams (alongside
completion of syllabus), Mr. Prashanta Kumar Paul keeps them
engaged in making presentations, Ms. Sanjukta De makes use of
podcasts and museum visits to reinforce her teaching and Dr
Sarmila Sarkar focuses on team building exercises. Together we
aim to bring out the best in each student, address their
particular weaknesses and nourish their strength while building
up their self-confidence.
At the completion of the History Honours program at the undergraduate level students have several options.
Students of History Honours from our institution are
variously employed as teachers - from University/College
level to Primary / Montessori level. Few of them have
entered the field of print journalism, book editing even
television news anchoring. Few are employed in Banks in
various capacities, one is an entrepreneur and few are in
the corporate sector.
Students graduating from this department regularly secure
admission for Post Graduate studies in Calcutta, Jadavpur
and Rabindra Bharati Universities. Archaeology and Museology
are possible options as also various Diploma courses in
Journalism, Tourism etc.
Quite a few of our students are pursuing successful careers
as School Teachers, College Lecturers and Journalists. One
student was accepted to TATA Institute of Social Sciences
and is now working as HRD manager. History Students can also
branch out to Gender Studies and Comparative Literature for
Post-Graduation.
Department of History
Gokhale Memorial Girls' College
1/1, Harish Mukherjee Road
Kolkata - 700020
Department Mail:
history@gokhalecollegekolkata.edu.in
College Mail:
gokhalecollegekolkata@gmail.com
.