The Department of English started from scratch on the 9th of August, 1971as a constituent of a night college and functioned from the premises of Maligaon Railway Higher Secondary School. However since 1972, the college has been functioning from its permanent premises at Nilachalpur, Guwahati-11.

The mission of the Department is to offer higher education to the marginal student community who could not access the central/city colleges for various reasons. Hence at the initial stage, the department catered mainly to working men and women. The credibility of the department was built piecemeal over thirty decades and it was only in the year 1994, English was offered as a major course and began its journey with only two students. The introduction of the semester system witnessed a spectacular progress in students’ academic performance. Since 2019, the CBCS system has been introduced at the Honours and General level injecting a new high into literature. The forte of the department is in the results of the Honours students. Students scoring average marks at the entry level pass the UG course with flying colours securing first class or higher second class. From 2023 the Department follows the FYUGP syllabus and currently the Department is offering both Major and Minor papers to the student.

The department offers Ability Enhancement Course (AEC) paper to students from various disciplines (including BCA and BSc IT paper) The department earlier offered a Spoken English certificate course for students across the streams. At the College level, the Ratneshwar Borooah Memorial Award of Rupees Five thousand is given to the Best Graduates across the streams.

As an incentive to creativity and outstanding results in the department, the HoD has instituted the Basanta Borooah Memorial Award of a cash prize of Rupees Six thousand for the best graduate (Honours) of the English Department.

The Department believes that academic learning must be complemented by extra-curricular activities and the same is fulfilled by arranging learning visits to places of significance, social get-togethers of the department, academic activities of the department, involvement in social activities through the NSS, NCC and the like.