The education department of West Bengal has pinpointed 8,207 state-supported schools for pre-primary, primary, and upper-primary education with student enrollment of fewer than 30. Among these, Kolkata alone has over 500 schools falling in this category.
Several schools located in underprivileged regions such as Purulia, Bankura, Jhargram, and West Midnapore have very few students enrolled. According to experts, the inadequate enrollment of students in these schools is attributed to the unsatisfactory state of primary and upper primary education.
"Primary teachers' involvement in active politics since the Left Front regime, which is continuing, ignoring their job of teaching is responsible for today's scenario. The middle-class people and poor people had no option. But thousands of private English medium and Bengali medium schools have already come up and middle-class parents are preferring to enrol their children in English medium schools. Poor families are now opting for private Bengali medium schools," said a headmaster of a school, stated a report by The New Indian Express.
Three years ago, the government of Bengal took the decision to shut down 135 state-aided primary and high schools in Kolkata and its adjacent areas due to a lack of enrollment. In 2021, the state government further decided to close 64 junior high schools supported by the state, which offered classes from V to VIII but had zero student enrollment. Nevertheless, the government has not yet formulated a plan for dealing with the over 8,000 schools that have a low student population. A group of teachers has recommended that the government provide English-medium instruction in these institutions.
''A few years ago, English medium education was introduced for an experiment which proved fruitful. The number of students increased in the schools where it was introduced. Many schools applied for setting up a second campus. The education department should consider our proposal,'' said the teacher-in-charge of another school, stated The New Indian Express report.
Education minister Bratya Basu said, ''The discussion about the future of these schools is going on in the preliminary stage. We will inform once a final decision is taken.'' Amitabha Mitra, a teacher of a school in Purulia, a district comprising mainly people of backward class, said, ''There are government-aided schools in almost every village. Since our district is known as a poverty-stricken region, many religious and welfare organisations have come forward to set up schools with cheap school fees and hostel facilities. Poor people are opting these schools, instead of sending their children to state-aided primary or upper primary schools," as reported by The New Indian Express.
