The Hindu : English to return to Bengal's primary schools

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Oct 15, 2003

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English to return to Bengal's primary schools

By Malabika Bhattacharya

KOLKATA OCT. 14. West Bengal's ruling Marxists appear to be paving the ground for the return of English to Class I from the next academic session as part of a major reforms programme the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee Government has undertaken over the past two and a half years.

Senior education officials said on Tuesday that the State Cabinet and the CPI(M) leadership had given Mr. Bhattacharjee the mandate to restore English at the primary level as a logical culmination of the reforms process that had been initiated by the former Chief Minister, Jyoti Basu.

The Left Front's education cell met on the issue on October 11, but a consensus was taking time to emerge because of the opposition to the idea from a considerable section of the Left Front, including Mr. Basu's own CPI(M).

According to sources close to Kanti Biswas, School Education Minister, who is believed to be against the introduction of English in the early stage of the primary level, the Government's latest move is in tune with growing popular demand, effects of globalisation and changing politics.

But the Government's efforts to make Mr. Biswas and others of similar conviction fall in line ran into rough weather last Saturday when the All Bengal Teachers' Association, the powerful teachers' arm of the CPI(M), said it would not allow the teaching of English from Class I.

The Pabitra Sarkar Committee, which was set up by Mr. Basu to formulate a policy on English teaching, recommended that the subject be taught formally from Class III and informally from Class II.

The recommendations were accepted and put into operation by the Left Front Government.

They will be asked for a review next year. Conservative fronts want to review the recommendations and introduce English from Class V as per the recommendation made by the Ashok Mitra Committee.

The Left Front partners would not buy what they said the ABTA' s worn-out logic suggesting that children should be familiar with their mother-tongue first, in this case, Bengali.

The CPI leaders, in the presence of Mr. Biswas and Biman Bose, CPI(M) politburo member, also the Front chairman, argued in favour of introducing English from Class II so that children could be on par with those in private schools.

The CPI found backers in both the Forward Bloc as well as the RSP, who also think the Front would do well to make up for its past mistakes by introducing English at the primary level.

In the absence of a consensus, the education cell would meet again on Oct.25.

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