Page 22 - EW February 2026

Education News

must be present throughout exam days for confidential and THEY SAID IT
logistical responsibilities. Despite these appeals, no written
affirmation has been received. “….a blanket ban ignores the complexity
In the absence of formal communication, the education of adolescent development. As noted by
ministry had made ad hoc arrangements for conducting the National Society for the Prevention of
board exams. Teachers from neighbouring schools are be- Cruelty to Children and some child rights
ing deputed to exam centres, and in some districts, officials
from BDO offices are being asked to replace school inspec- bodies, social media is also a lifeline. For rural
tors engaged as electoral officials. adolescents, urban slum dwellers, queer and
Educators in Kolkata are alarmed that what’s unfold- differently abled teens seeking peer support,
ing in West Bengal is not merely administrative overlap. these platforms are often their only window
It is systemic de-prioritisation of public education, with to a community where they feel seen.”
electoral processes classified as inviolable. However, sys- Apar Gupta, Founder of the Internet Freedom Found-
tematic destruction of public education, began long before ation, India, in an essay titled ‘A social media ban will
SIR — rooted in the TMC’s scams-ridden and hamfisted not save our children’ (The Hindu, February 9)
governance that precipitated an acute teacher shortage,
prolonged schools shut down during the pandemic, and a “The files provide a sobering X-ray of some of
collapse of job opportunities in the state, steadily eroding America’s elites: Immature, full of impunity,
students’ faith in a future within West Bengal. The con- corrupt, venal, venial, and venereal all at
sequences are not abstract. They are visible in deserted
schools, skeletal staff rooms, and a generation of children once. They also provide a sobering view of
quietly slipping out of the education system. global politics: There are no grand purposes,
engal’s primary-secondary education crisis is manifest- not even a political economy. Instead,
Bing in higher education. On July 30, 2025, the final day what we get is a world run by huckstering
for undergraduate applications, only 3.59 lakh students reg- middlemen, vulnerable personalities, fragile
istered on West Bengal’s centralised portal — down sharply egos, the perfect embodiment of Spengler’s
from 5.3 lakh the previous year. Prestigious institutions are figures of moral decline: Clever, sceptical, but
not immune either. In the highly reputed Jadavpur Univer- licentious and morally exhausted.”
sity, undergrad admission applications in core disciplines Pratap Bhanu Mehta, public intellectual, on the Epstein
have nearly halved in 2025. In Vidyasagar University, Files (Indian Express, February 9)
46 colleges offering over 74,000 seats have received just
24,000 applications. Academics cite pervasive loss of faith
in the education-to-employment pipeline. “The Budget this year has landed with a thud,
“When teachers are dragged out of schools en masse for not because of what it contains, but because
election duty and children lose months of instruction year of what it omits. Behind claims of fiscal
after year, and when faith in learning collapses, the damage prudence lie a more uncomfortable reality:
extends far beyond exam halls. It distorts society,” com- the Indian state is shrinking not by design,
ments Partha Pratim Ray, associate professor of Physics but by compulsion.”
at Jadavpur University. Shashi Tharoor, Congress MP, on the Union Budget
“West Bengal is staring at a generational rupture — one 2026-27 (The New Indian Express, February 10)
whose consequences will outlast any single policy, verdict,
or election cycle. The question is no longer whether edu-
cation is being hampered; that reality is already visible in “NIRF’s integration of Scopus metrics
empty classrooms, overburdened teachers, disrupted exam- has triggered what the framework itself
inations, and steady erosion of public trust. The real ques- acknowledges as a “dangerous race for
tion now is whether the state can afford to let its education quantity over quality.” India now ranks
system deteriorate any further, knowing that the cost will second globally in research retractions — a
be paid not just by way of loss in learning outcomes, but in distinction achieved not through scholarly
lost opportunities, widening inequality, and an entire gen- excellence, but through the systematic
eration pushed to the margins of the future,” rues political incentivisation of misconduct.”
activist Swapan Mondal, and a teacher at Narikeldanga Sushant Kishore, professor, VIT and Navneet Sharma,
High School, Kolkata. lecturer, Central University of Himachal Pradesh in
Evidently in latter day West Bengal, electoral democracy an essay titled 'Inside India’s ‘metric raj’: How global
extracts a heavy price. rankings are reshaping higher education' (Deccan
Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata) Herald, February 8)

22 EDUCATIONWORLD FEBRUARY 2026