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Education News

s.12 (2). Strictures against the MVA ment’s restriction of on-campus
government for harassing instead of in-class learning to secondary up-
helping, the state’s private schools wards education reflects a confused
during the pandemic lockdown are mindset, if not inverted priorities.
also in the offing. Self-evidently, older children are bet-
Dipta Joshi (Mumbai) ter equipped to self-learn and access
online learning. On the other hand,
WEST BENGAL youngest children in pre-primary
Laggard state and primary classes who are too
young to learn online, are in danger
of forgetting the socialisation skills
EST BENGAL’S 92,000 gov- they learn in early childhood educa-
ernment and 2,000 pri- tion and the academic fundamentals
Wvate schools, 372 colleges they learn in primary classes.
and 32 universities will reopen for According to Dr. Sw at i P o p at
on-campus classes on November 16. V at s , president of the Early Child-
Following chief minister M am at a hood Association of India, India’s
B an e rj e e ’ s declaration to this effect prolonged lockdown of schools — the
on October 25, an official gazette longest of any major country world-
notification was issued by the state wide — has endangered the architec-
government on October 28 re-start- ture of the revolutionary 5+3+3+4
ing the massive education system of K-12 education system mandated by
West Bengal (pop.91 million) after the National Education Policy (NEP) a result there was much less learning
the unprecedented 20 months long 2020 which accords high importance loss in West Bengal during the pan-
Covid pandemic lockdown. to early childhood care and educa- demic,” says an education ministry
However under the October 28 tion (ECCE). “Because of the too official.
order, only class IX-XII students prolonged closure of schools, many owever, this defence of the
are permitted to attend on-campus years of work to impact the value Hcasual attitude of the TMC
classes with the education ministry of professionally provided ECCE to government towards early childhood
also set to announce the schedule children in their most important and primary education stretches
for class X and XII board exams for years has gone down the drain,” Dr. credulity. “It’s absurd to believe that
2022. Board exams for 2021 were Popat Vats told Educ ationW orld in youngest children can self-learn
cancelled earlier this year for fear of July. because they’ve been given text-
Covid-19 contagion. In defence of the cautious ap- books, especially first generation
The ruling Trinamool Congress proach to restarting class I-VIII, learners. The plain truth is that for
(TMC) government’s ultra-cautious state education ministry spokes- political populism reasons, the chief
A
restarting of on-campus secondary person quote the nnual S tatus of minister and TMC government threw
W
and higher education classes has Educ ation R ep ort 2 0 2 0 ave 1 of Covid protocols to the winds during
received lukewarm welcome. “In the the highly-respected Pratham Educa- the month long Durga Puja festival
US and Europe, the effect of closure tion Foundation. as a result of which Covid infec-
of education institutions has been According to the report, West tions statewide have risen sharply.
studied extensively, and they are of Bengal has the least number of chil- This has necessitated government’s
the opinion that (prolonged closure dren who dropped out of school in extreme caution about reopening
of education institutions) has de- the 2018-20 period. The report says, schools. But the fact is that primary
creased students’ life expectancy and school dropouts in the state declined schools have restarted countrywide
caused enormous economic damage from 3.3 percent to 1.5 percent even and West Bengal is a laggard state.
that will take 70 years to set right. as the national percentage increased According to billionaire Azim Premji,
We have to remember the closure from 4 to 5.5 percent during the chairman of the Azim Premji Foun-
has been much longer in India and pandemic. This is because the West dation, 220 million children have not
therefore the effect is going to be Bengal government distributed learnt anything during the pandemic.
huge,” Dr. Arj un Das g up t a, one of textbooks to 99.7 percent of school In the circumstances, the lackadaisi-
Kolkata’s leading medical practitio- students as against Uttar Pradesh cal attitude of the TMC government
ners, told The H indu (October 28). (79.6 percent), Rajasthan (60.4), towards re-starting early childhood
Experienced educationists in Gujarat (95), Andhra Pradesh (84.6) and primary classes is disgraceful,”
Kolkata believe that the TMC govern- and Maharashtra (80.8 percent). “As says the irate principal of a co-ed

24 EDUCATIONWORLD NOVEMBER 2021