The West Bengal Department of Education has announced a new State Education Policy (SEP) that keeps the current schooling system in place. The Education Department released the notification recommending the continuance of the state's 5+4+2+2 school system on September 9.
The SEP has given the go-ahead for schooling to continue using the 5+4+2+2 pattern, according to a representative of the education department. Students must complete one year of pre-primary education, four years of primary school up to class 4, two years of secondary education, and two years of higher education, according to the policy,.
Classes 11 and 12 in higher education feature semester-level exams that are designed "to ease the transition from school to university in a phased manner... having a combination of multiple choice questions and descriptive ones" over the course of the two semesters. It was stated regarding the three-language formula that "it will be introduced for students of classes 5 to 8 depending upon the availability of infrastructure."
The second language will be any language other than the first language based on the preferences of the student, with mother tongue as the first language being the medium of instruction (Bengali in Bengali medium schools, Nepali in Nepali medium schools, and Hindi in Hindi medium schools).
Additionally, it urges the introduction of summer internship programs or projects for secondary and higher secondary students. For this internship, it offers partnerships with media outlets, book publishers, and business enterprises. The policy suggests conducting yearly State Achievement Surveys to evaluate the achievement of children in Grades 3, 5, 8, and 10. But current policy already includes this.
Additionally, it advises that in order to solve the issue of skewed pupil-teacher ratios (PTR) in some districts, teachers be required to serve for five years in the state's rural areas. One of the recommendations is to base teacher promotions on performance measures.
To improve the research foundation of the state's higher education institutions, the policy suggests creating a distinct organization for research funding, the State Research Fund, under the West Bengal State Council of Higher Education (WBSCHE). The WBSCHE will also be tasked with identifying the main research topics and recommending suitable funding options for them.
