'Bengal contemplating to introduce works of great personalities to students'

The West Bengal government has been contemplating to introduce the life and works of great personalities to school students in a greater way in future, Education Minister Partha Chatterjee said Wednesday.

The government has formed an expert committee to select the personalities and suggest how their ideas, dreams, and lives can be incorporated in school books, he said. The recommendations will then be submitted to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the minister said.

"There had been some chapters devoted to great sons and daughters of the land like Swami Vivekananda in school textbooks. We need to devote more pages to their lives and works. We need to let the young generation know their sacrifices in a far more effective way. This issue had been neglected in the past regime," Chatterjee said.

He was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a function to mark the 125th anniversary of Swami Vivekananda's Chicago address. He said the education department was bringing out booklets containing the text of Swamiji's Chicago address for distributing free of cost among students.

An educationist, who is the member of the expert committee, said articles on the life, philosophy, and works of various personalities would be compiled as supplementary reading materials for students from class five to eight and not textbooks falling under the curriculum. "There will be many others on the list about whom the younger generation don't know much," he said.