Tripura to convert 769 schools to English medium in five years

From A Correspondent

Agartala, June 6: In an unusual step the Left Front government in Tripura has decided to convert most of the Bengali medium schools in the state into English medium.

The Director for Department of Secondary Education Uttam Kumar Chakma in a notification said altogether 769 Bengali Medium Schools will be converted to English Medium in next five year.

As per the notification the process for medium conversion will begin from next academic year when 184 schools will be converted to English medium. This will be followed by 173 schools in 2019, 155 in 2020, 140 in 2021 and 117 in 2022.

All the school inspectors have been asked to identify the schools within their jurisdiction which can be converted to English medium in the first phase. According to sources the inspectors of schools are finding it difficult to identify the schools to be converted to English medium as most of the schools are suffering from shortage of teachers.

‘When we can’t depot teacher to run the Bengali Medium schools from where we will get teacher to run the English Medium schools’, they are wandering.  

The education department officials also clueless about how the demand for such huge number of teachers will be met with existing strength of teachers specially when most of them don’t have English background. However, they are hopeful that the new teachers who are going to be recruited through TET will neutralize some of their woe.

The decision about medium conversion was taken as number of students was reducing in the existing Bengali medium schools for last several years and on the other hand number of students was increasing in the privately maged English medium schools coming up in every corner of the state.  

Giving statistics, an official source said, not a single student got admitted to English in 26 schools in 2017. Number of students is less than 10 in 219 schools, less than 5 in 107 schools, less than 3 in 67 schools, less than two in 31 schools and only one student in 14 schools.

It was found that going by the current trend the parents are keen to educate their children in English medium schools considering their future prospects and job opportunities. Initially it was decided that one English medium school will be set up in each of the state’s 52 blocks but subsequently the decision was changed as it will be too idequate considering the growing demand.