People's Democracy

LF Govt Announces Educational Policy Decisions

FOLLOWING an extensive meeting with teachers’ organisations of the state, the school education department of the Bengal Left Front government has announced a bouquet of decisions regarding educational policy. All but three smaller teachers’ bodies supported the move comprehensively.

Explaining the decisions taken by the LF government, Kanti Biswas, school education minister said that English would be taught as a subject from the next session and from class I.  Changed circumstances and the demands of a new situation, explained Biswas, “has urged upon the state LF government to take this step.”

Back in 1977 when the Left Front assumed office riding on the crest of a vast popular wave, the goal was to establish universal education. A vast bulk of boys and girls of school-going age had until then been kept out of the realm of institutional education. The decision to impart education through the vernacular was initiated to ensure that language barrier would not prevent the younger generation from flocking the schools and pre-schools. 

Over the two-and-half-decades, there has been a massive spread of education thanks chiefly to the twin processes of rural development and education movement. Compared to the national average, very few children are away from and outside of institutional education in this state.

The present decision to teach English from class I was also influenced by the quantum leap in operation in the spheres of computer education, information technology, and biotechnology. There was a felt need to modernise and bring the education system of Bengal up-to-date.

The school education department initiated several other important decisions. These included: decreasing the number of holidays from 80 to 68 days; the new curriculum would include such topics as health education, moral education, and gender education from class VIII onwards; the pattern of questions for the joint entrance examination for medical and engineering entrance would be in keeping with the higher secondary standard questions; and great emphasis would be attached to the spread of computer education in schools.

It is noted that some time back, the LF government had set up a one-member commission to go through the syllabi and curricula of the school education and the madrasa systems. The recommendations of the commission have recently been put up before the state government. Earlier to that, another commission had been set up to look into the feasibility of teaching English from the preliminary classes in schools. The state government had taken due cognisance of the recommendations of both commissions and had additionally organised survey work on its own to finally come to the present decision of teaching English from class I in schools. It has been found in the survey that a general interest has of late been generated among both students and their guardians to go in for English in a big way. (INN)