WHEN WEST BENGAL’S FIREBRAND chief minister Mamata Banerjee ended 34 years of uninterrupted rule of the CPM (Communist Party of India-Marxist)-led Left Front government rule in the state — during which quasi-literate CPM apparatchiks filled all institutions of education driving teaching-learning standards to new lows — in May 2011, she aroused great expectations in West Bengal’s academy. During the election campaign which resulted in her Trinamool Congress (TMC) party sweeping into office three years ago, she had promised to restore West Bengal’s lost academic glory — once the envy of India.

Since assuming office, Banerjee has taken a number of notable initiatives — promotion of English-medium schools under the Kolkata Municipal Corporation; revision of school syllabuses and excising communist propaganda from them, and restoring the prestige of Presidency University as an institution of academic excellence. 
But almost three years later, none of these initiatives have made much headway. On the contrary, several incidents of anarchy on school/college campuses, mass copying in examinations and a series of resignations from high positions in academia and education committees, have grabbed media headlines in Kolkata and beyond. However, despite TMC’s initiatives yet to get off the ground, the education ministry has launched a new drive to curb mass copying in school-leaving board examinations.

With the Madhyamik (class X) and higher secondary examinations scheduled for March drawing near, the West Bengal Board of Higher Secondary Education (WBBHSE) has decreed a zero-tolerance policy against mass copying by students. According to WBBHSE sources, henceforth “there will be no warnings or snatching of answer sheets, and students caught copying in exams or even aiding and abetting cheating will be put behind bars”. “Although we haven’t explored the arrest option as yet, we have been forced to be tough to put an end to the menace,” said education minister Bratya Basu on New Year’s day.

According to a new plan, the government has decided to install closed circuit television cameras in examination centres statewide to monitor students writing school-leaving exams. “I have asked the Madhyamik Board authorities and also WBBHSE to draw up a list of vulnerable examination centres which will be supervised by the director general of police,” the minister said.

During the board exams of 2012, over 50 people were arrested for aiding and abetting students in cheating and examination malpractices. Most of the incidents were reported from South 24-Parganas, Murshidabad, Malda and North Dinajpur districts, where there were open clashes between students and police, and the premises of several schools vandalised. In February 2013, the Madhyamik board increased the number of invigilators in every hall and roped in the district administration and police to help conduct orderly examinations. The board has now made it mandatory for every school to have at least two invigilators for every 30 examinees, and parents and guardians of examinees won’t be allowed within 100 metres of exam centres. Moreover, the practice of board employees and local teachers conducting exams and/or inspection has also been scrapped. “Examination malpractices were overlooked during over three decades of rule of the Left Front government in West Bengal. We are determined to end this menace,” says Basu.

WBBHSE president Mahua Das welcomes the initiatives of the TMC government to severely punish exam cheats. “There is an urgent need to impose deterrent punishment on cheating students, and especially adults aiding and abetting them. During the rule of the Left Front government, it was routine for examinees found copying to create a ruckus. Now video footage will help us identify vandals who one hopes will be severely punished,” he says.

However with the youth wings of the CPM and ruling TMC running amok in the state, there’s considerable skepticism about the state government being able to stamp out exam malpractices which are steadily diluting the market value of certificates issued by education institutions in West Bengal. “With mass cheating and vandalisation of property encouraged by political parties, it’s doubtful they will punish and discipline their own members,” says Sukanya Ghosh, an English language school teacher in South 24 Parganas.

Quite obviously the rot has permeated too deep in West Bengal’s institutions of education to permit band-aid solutions.

Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata)