Crisis of the school education administration of West Bengal: Ruling party has no regret

By Harasankar Adhikari
West Bengal is in turmoil. It is evident that the ruling TMC-led government is inundated with an extreme level of corruption, and all of these are under investigation. Is the administration not collapsing because of political party-dominated, authoritative rule? The government of West Bengal is deliberately misusing the administration for highly corrupted parry workers. Some of the important state cabinet ministers are in jail. The ruling party has no regret and no effort to rectify it, while it expenses a huge amount of revenue to protect the culprits (party leaders). It plays a game of judiciary juggling from lower courts to the honorable Supreme Court of India only to establish it as a political revenge of the BJP-led government of India.
Among these corruptions, the recruitment of school teachers or the school job scam is one of the biggest setbacks to the people of the state. At present, the most noble deed or teaching profession has become the most hateful profession. The common mass has no margin of faith in teachers and their profession. The majority of the schools have been filled with corruptly recruited manpower (teachers). The COVID-19 pandemic undoubtedly affected the overall education system, from the primary to the university level. In the post-pandemic days, the situation has not yet normalized. Many schools do not have sufficient teachers, and the whole recruitment process is in danger. The most eligible school job seekers have crossed 1000 days of movement for their recruitment. The government is fingering the honorable High Court of Calcutta for this jeopardized situation.
It has been observed that due to long-term school closures, pupils, particularly in rural areas, are obsessed, and guardians are less motivated for their wards’ education. Guardians are in support of their alternative livelihood, and they think that education will not bring happiness in the future as far as their employment scope. There is an environment created where teachers, teaching quality, and the environment are questioned. In some districts, the headmasters had taken initiatives through household visits and campaigning to bring the pupils to school. Unfortunately, due to extended summer vacation, Panchayat poll 2023, and so forth, the school days were almost less than 100 days of job guarantee.
Surprisingly, the concerned department has not taken it into consideration because there is tactically a benefit to fewer school days. Here, there is another corruption with the midday meal. Of course, this department was notified to bless the Madhamik (secondary) examinee with Rs. 10 (ten) as examination care. But it will charge Rs. 1000/- (thousand) as correction fees for the registration of Madhyamik appearing candidates, which was Rs. 50 (fifty) before. Is it not a fantastic game plan for financial harassment?
The government-sponsored political torture and harassment of the school teachers is an important aspect of taking away the teachers from their responsibility to provide careful teaching to the pupils. They are facing physical assault by the TMC leaders when they are morally taking care of their pupils by at least promoting them with pass marks into the next class. School is no longer a second home, and teachers are no longer second guardians for children, which is the most important aspect of child development. For the protection of child rights, corporal punishment is restricted, which is known to every child because it has been pasted in every book to make the children and their counterparts aware of it. So, the teachers are helpless to take any little step toward better childhood morality and discipline. A few days before, a teacher was killed on the spot after being beaten by a student of class X in the North 24 Parganas district because he was restricted from entering the examination hall with a smart phone. This student was a ward of a local TMC leader. This student has been socialized with his father’s power and authority as a TMC leader.
The government and child rights activists and workers have properly worked to protect the children from corporal punishment. They should also take proper steps to promote the morality and responsibility of the child towards their senior. Is it not political discrimination? Would it be enough to make our future talent productive? This situation would surely produce an unproductive educational environment where education would be a status symbol. It would never yield a better nation. Today, West Bengal is going to lose all its glories, particularly those attached to education and the education system. Who will revive and how? That should be a much-waited-for hope, surely.

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