WB gives nod to 65 schools to introduce English as medium of teaching

West Bengal Education minister Partha Chatterjee Wednesday said the government has given consent to 65 state-run and aided schools to start English as the medium of teaching from this month. Chatterjee told reporters here that "while Bengali studies will continue in the said 65 schools, we will also introduce English as a medium of teaching in these schools side by side, from class one, in this month itself."

He said the government wanted to retain Bengali as mother tongue in those institutions but was also in favour of realising the dreams of lower-middle-class parents - who had lesser economic power - to impart English teaching to their children to fare well in their future career. "We have asked the said department (school education) to accept the application of 65 schools to start English medium teaching from class one and take initiatives to start classes from this month," he said. Admissions will start in 2019.

The minister said manuals for English medium teaching in the schools have been prepared already and now ready for distribution in the schools. "We want this move to introduce English medium teaching in schools gets wider publicity to let people know so that they can be benefited," he said.

On the issue of teacher transfer in schools from primary to secondary levels, Chatterjee said, the government held a meeting to get an update about the number of students, number of teachers, number of additional teachers in different state-run schools. "This is needed to rationalise any inequal student-teacher ratio in the respective institute and effect transfer of teachers to the school where there is a scarcity of teachers," he said. He said 70,000 teacher transfers had been effected during the tenure of the Trinamool Congress government, which was higher than the previous regime.

(With inputs from agencies.)