English-medium schools will be set up in every block: Mamata

KOLKATA: The government will set up an English-medium school in every block of the state, CM Mamata Banerjee announced after her first cabinet meeting on Monday.
“This will help rural students avail the opportunity of English education,” the CM said, addressing a rural demand that has led to mushrooming of English-medium private schools in the districts. This will now be a priority for Paresh Adhikary, the minister given charge of school education.
Banerjee’s decision comes at a time when the Narendra Modi government’s New Education Policy (NEP) advocates education in mother tongue. PM Modi during his election campaign in Bengal had repeatedly stressed that his government would help the poor and marginalised pursue even professional courses like medicine and engineering in their mother tongue.
Political observers see Banerjee’s move as yet another challenge to Modi, this time on the education front. Bengal has witnessed fierce debates over the medium of instruction at the primary level since the Left Front banished English till class V in the Eighties.
The move was aimed at bringing down the rate of school dropouts in rural areas, which experts in the party had ascribed to a fright of the language. The decision, however, proved counter-productive. English was finally brought back to classrooms after 24 years in 2004 when then CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee reintroduced it in class I. as the Left Front’s language policy began to have an impact on its vote share. Aware of the past, CM Banerjee started pushing the English-medium agenda from her second term.