The Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) government, which was voted back into the eastern seaboard state of West Bengal (pop.91 million) for a second consecutive term on May 19 last year, is yet to fulfill its electoral promise of bringing “positive change” in the state’s education sector, ruined by persistent government interference during 34 years of uninterrupted rule (1977-2011) of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM)-led Left Front. Unfortunately, instead of orderly reforms during its two consecutive terms in office, the TMC government has been introducing arbitrary changes that far from creating a positive impact, have resulted in disgruntlement, agitations and even indefinite shut down of schools and colleges. 

Hot on the heels of her announcement of May 16 making Bengali a compulsory subject in all schools of the state, which has resulted in an indefinite strike called by the Gorkha Mukti Morcha (GMM), which represents the Nepali-speaking majority in the hill areas of north Bengal, on August 4, education minister Partha Chatterjee has made another outlandish declaration to establish an exclusive examination board to affiliate more than 1,000 private English-medium schools in Bengal currently affiliated with the CISCE, CBSE and IB exam boards.

“We are thinking of constituting a separate board for English medium schools. It has been noticed that the schools which are under CISCE and CBSE do not abide by the rules set by the state education ministry and only adhere to the rules set by their affiliating boards,” Chatterjee told media at the state secretariat on August 4. “If these elite schools continue to ignore the state government, we have to think of setting up a separate board through appropriate legislation,” he said.

This initiative is reportedly the fallout of nine minority school principals calling on Chatterjee and expressing their angst over a CISCE proposal to introduce compulsory examinations in classes V and VIII. They feel this is tantamount to forcing CISCE schools to follow a uniform curriculum from preschool onwards which will sharply reduce the academic autonomy that all schools enjoy from preschool to class VIII. However, CISCE secretary and CEO Gerry Arathoon has reportedly reassured the nine principals and clarified that student assessments proposed in classes V and VIII are still at the ideas stage and the council has no immediate plans to implement them.

Unsurprisingly, this state government proposal has aroused strong opposition from school managements who feel that instead of focusing on developing its 92,000 government schools, the education ministry is busy formulating arbitrary changes in private K-12 education. According to latest District Information System for Education data published by the Delhi-based National University of Educational Planning and Administration, 40.5 percent of state government schools are without libraries, 36 percent don’t have separate toilets for girls, and 96.5 percent don’t have computers for children to use. 

Moreover according to the Annual Status of Education Report, 49.8 percent of class V children in West Bengal’s government rural primaries cannot read class II textbooks (cf. 46.8 percent in 2010).

The majority of private school principals believe that the proposal reflects the education minister’s ignorance of constitutional provisions and the body of case law relating to the autonomy of private education institutions and Article 30 (1) of the Constitution, and the Supreme Court’s judgement in the T.M.A. Pai Foundation Case (2002). Though some CISCE affiliated schools are unhappy with the board’s imposition of a uniform curriculum and primary school examinations, they dread the prospect of being affiliated with a new, untried board run by the state government which has dreadfully mismanaged its own government schools. “Better to stick with the devil you know,” says the principal of a private international school cryptically.

Quite obviously — Chatterjee’s proposal which is likely to die an early death — was prompted by populist considerations. But instead of being welcomed, it has aroused exasperation within the public. At a time when the GMM agitation in north Bengal has dealt a severe blow to education in the state as Darjeeling, Kurseong and Kalimpong are major school education hubs hosting over 42 CBSE/CISCE schools, the state government — which has neither the resources nor the competence to administer English medium schools — has needlessly dealt another blow to West Bengal’s few surviving nationally ranked schools. 

Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata)