New education policy for Bengal notified
A new state education policy has been notified by the Bengal government, whose important features are a 5+4+2+2 school structure, semester system for classes 11 and 12, three-language formula for schools and a 4+1 higher education structure.
The Bengal government has adopted a new state education policy (SEP). The policy, notified on September 9, continues with the 5+4+2+2 school structure, as against the 5+3+3+4 structure envisaged by the National Education Policy’s (NEP), which was approved by the Union Cabinet on July 29, 2020 (replacing the 34-year old National Policy on Education).
The 5+4+2+2 structure implies one year of pre-primary (equivalent to KG), four years of primary (classes 1 – 4), four years of upper primary, or middle school (classes 5 -8), two years of secondary (classes 9 and 10) and two years of higher secondary (classes 11 and 12).
The new Congress government in Karnataka too had announced the scrapping of the NEP in the state in August, to be replaced by a new SEP next year, till which time the existing policy would continue.
Bengal’s education policy is based on the recommendations of a committee comprising of the eminent academics Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Sugata Bose and Suranjan Das.
The sole change in the existing structure is the inclusion of the first two years of education at an Anganwadi centre (equivalent to Montessori education in urban areas), prior to pre-primary.
The other important features of Bengal’s education policy are: three-language formula, semester system for classes 11 and 12 and a 4+1 structure for higher education.
Under the three-language formula, which “will be introduced for students of classes 5 to 8 depending upon the availability of infrastructure”, mother tongue as the first language will be the medium of instruction (Bengali in Bengali medium schools, Nepali in Nepali medium, Hindi in Hindi medium schools), the second language will be any language other than the first language based on the preferences of the student (including English for vernacular mediums), and the third language can be “any other language opted by the student, other than the first and second languages”.
Classes 11 and 12 will be divided into two semesters each, the idea behind the semester-level exams being to “ease the transition from school to university in a phased manner”.
For higher education, a 4+1 formula has already been mooted—a four-year undergraduate structure instead of three and a one-year postgraduate in place of two.
