Members of SUCI (Communist) protest against the draft PPP model of education in Kolkata on Thursday. Partha Paul Facing criticism over its proposed public-private-partnership (PPP) model in the education sector, the West Bengal government has decided to put the policy in cold bag.
A senior official of the School Education Department said that the government was planning to provide land and other amenities to private players for setting up schools. “It would have not only increased our education level but also boosted employment and revenue of the state.
However, we are not in a hurry. We decided to go slow on this policy.” Officials said under the proposal, the state wanted to regulate the fee structure and recruitment.
The students and teachers’ wings of the CPI(M) have given a call for a protest rally on Saturday. The Left Front alleged the proposal will lead to privatisation and corporatisation of schools. Srijan Bhattacharya, state secretary of Students’ Federation of India (the student wing of CPM), said, “We are against it. We will oppose it at any cost.”
CPI(M) leader Samik Lahiri said, “The TMC-led West Bengal government is implementing the BJP’s education policy which intends to promote corporatisation. Even the TMC-led govt is trying to promote communal agenda by introducing Charak Stotra in place of a hypocritical oath in medical courses.”
Countering Opposition, Kolkata Mayor and State Transport Minister Firhad Hakim said it was the Left Front that had privatised education.
“Now, we are trying to increase the level of education so that our student will not go to other states for higher education. Not only that, students from other states will come here for better education,” said Hakim.
On January 24, Manish Jain, Principal Secretary of the School Education Department, wrote a letter to some state departments and sought their view on the ‘West Bengal Policies and Guidelines for setting up Schools in Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) Mode, 2022’. The guidelines proposed that “a need is felt to encourage the private investors in school education sector by extending more flexible Government contribution in the form of Public Private Partnership mode, where the State Government may provide land or building or infrastructures and other amenities to the investors”.
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