College Profile

Ewing Christian College, Allahabad is an institution that has been continuously striving for excellence, in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Established in 1902, as a College in the University-town of Allahabad, when the University had no campus and was only granting affiliation. The College soon rose to postgraduate status, with a strong emphasis on research and extension work relevant for rural India. Spread on a sprawling green campus of 42 acres, on the bank of river Yamuna, the College opened its Agriculture Economics Extension Department, on the other side of the river, which soon developed into the present day - Sam Higginbottom Institute of Agriculture and Technology, Allahabad.

Ewing Christian College, Allahabad took gigantic gait in the field of higher education with Dr. Winfield Dudgeon opening first laboratory course in Botany, laying a very strong base for research in the College. Dr. W. Dudgeon's work is typified by the fact that he was the first president (1921) of Indian Botanical Society and served as president of the Botanical Section of the Indian Science Congress, in 1922.

By the Allahabad University Reorganization Act, 1921, the degree and post-graduate classes were shifted to the University of Allahabad, reducing the College to Intermediate level. The College thereafter acquired land near the Allahabad University, where Ewing Christian University College (presently, William Holland Hall University College) started functioning from 1923.

With the independence of the country, the College regained its undergraduate status, in Science, in 1951, and in Arts, in 1956. Soon, the College established itself as the premier institution in imparting science education and its efforts were immediately rewarded by University Grants Commission (UGC), which selected the College, for College Science Improvement Programme (COSIP) in 1970, it being amongst the first batch of colleges selected to test the efficacy of the programme. The College launched its own interdisciplinary programmes in 1973 and was again rewarded by the UGC, which selected the College for College humanities and Social Sciences improvement programme (COHSSIP) in 1975.

Ewing Christian College, Allahabad was one of the first Colleges in the country which started preparing for Autonomy in right earnest around 1975 and started moving ahead in preparedness under the guidance of the then Principal, Late Dr. P. S. Job. The college subsequently gained autonomy in 1994, becoming the second college in the State to gain Autonomous Status.

With the advent of Autonomy, the ills afflicting the College were swept out of the campus and the College administration with active support of the faculty members succeeded in gaining full control of the academic programmes. The first priority of the College was to weed out the non-serious students by introduction of compulsory attendance and Mid-term examination. The College then embarked on innovations and was amongst the first few of the colleges in the country to be selected for introduction of vocational courses at Degree level in 1994. The College soon introduced a number of job oriented degree and diploma programmes. In its quest for vertical growth, the College Society established a new institution "Ewing Christian Institute of Management and Technology", affiliated to U. P. Technical University and approved by AICTE, for starting MCA Programme from the session 2003-04.

Ewing Christian College, Allahabad is actually fulfilling the rightful role in the field of higher education in this part of the country which is badly lagging behind in providing quality education to the students.

The College offers wide range of choices to students in the form of degree, diploma, P.G. diploma and certificate level courses. The college has shifted markedly from traditional courses to vocational courses and has taken full advantage of autonomy by introducing various innovative career oriented courses. ECC has been the first institution in Allahabad to offer Computer Application as a subject at degree level to Arts students though with limited subject combinations. With authorization from UGC, vocational and certificate courses have been launched in the College since 1994. B. Ed. programme was launched in the college in 2003. All these courses are self-financed.

In this period of transition when the State support is shrinking and the institutions are being asked to be financially self-supporting, the College has learnt its lessons fast, as the self-financed component has grown from zero percent, in 1994 to around 40 percent, in 2003.

The College has introduced environmental education along with Moral and Religious education as an essential part of the curriculum for which the efforts began in 2002 itself, by dividing subjects offered in Arts faculty into four groups. This has enabled the College to recast the timetable in such a manner that one period can be allotted for these non-core options.