Taki House starts English-medium classes in Kolkata

KOLKATA: Shrugging off decade-long tradition, Bengali-medium government schools have now started focusing on making their students future ready.
The Government Sponsored Multipurpose School for Boys, Taki House, has opened its doors to students who have been looking forward to study with English as a medium of instruction. The new academic session, starting from April 2019, will continue with the two mediums of instruction simultaneously.

While Bengali remains the first language for the curriculum, students will now have a choice to go for a preferred medium of instruction. “Taki Boys is the first school in north and south Kolkata to adopt English along with Bengali. There are a few more schools, which have applied for a similar structure for medium of instruction,” said primary school council chairman Kartik Chandra Manna.

“The demand for English as the medium of instruction had come from the parents first. It took us some months to figure out how to go about it. Starting a new medium of instruction from primary level to Class X was not an easy task,” said Paresh Kumar Nanda, headmaster of Taki Boys.

The school’s first application for English as a medium of instruction, around a decade back, was turned down by the government. A few years back, while the school was preparing to celebrate its golden jubilee year, the teachers decided to apply for it again.

Meanwhile, the school had started special classes for spoken English course on its own. “The alumni association of the school reped in money and started paying salary for the faculty from that kitty till the state government decided to pay for the teachers,” said Kunal Ghosh, former Trinamool MP and member of the alumni association.

Last year, state education minister Partha Chatterjee allowed the school to start English as a medium of instruction from the 2019 academic session. “It has been a big relief for the students, who have been lagging behind in terms of proficiency in English. A lot of parents prefer to send their kids to schools that follow Madhyamik syllabus. The new medium of instruction will help them during competitive examinations in future,” said Alpana Ghosh, a resident of Beliaghata. Her son studies in Class III and was shifted to the English medium after the new session started.

Books were already available with the board, but the teachers decided to add a few more books to the curriculum to supplement their knowledge and language skill.