Three church-run colleges will come up in the next couple of years, Reverend Paritosh Canning, the bishop of the Calcutta diocese of the Church of North India, said on Thursday.

The three colleges are — St James’ College, St John’s Diocesan College and a law college at St Thomas’ (school) in Kidderpore. St James’ College and the one at St Thomas’ will be co-educational, while St John’s Diocesan will be a girls-only institution.

“We are working on St James’ and maybe within the next one-and-a-half years we will be able to start a degree college… for a degree college at St John’s Diocesan, paper has been submitted and I think within a year we will be able to start. And we have identified a place at St Thomas’ Kidderpore to start a law college there...,” the bishop said during a programme on Thursday afternoon. “These places are in the heart of the city...,” the bishop later told Metro.

“In Oxford Mission, Behala, we want to create an educational hub (school and later college and university),” he added.

During the programme the bishop also spoke of starting short courses in hotel management, hospitality on the Bishop’s House campus.

“Our plan is to start from August so that the youth who cannot go for further study can come here and do the short course (six months theory and six months practical). If they qualify they will get diploma certificates,” he said.

The bishop also said if the diploma courses work well, the next step would be to have a degree course on hospitality and hotel management.

“We have huge space and we can utilise it,” he added.