The Students’ Federation of India (SFI) will hold protests in front of 8,207 schools that the Bengal government has decided to shut down.

The decision was taken on a day SFI activists and police clashed on the streets of Calcutta and Howrah as they were denied permission to march to the Assembly to meet education minister Bratya Basu.

The students’ wing of the CPM had written to Basu to hold talks on several issues, including the government’s decision to shut down schools and the demand to hold students’ union polls in colleges. The SFI also wanted to convey to Basu its concern about the huge drop in the number of Madhyamik examinees compared to last year. In 2023, the number of Madhyamik examinees had come down by four lakh.

“We are asking all students to reach those 8,207 schools, which have been forced to close. They need to put up posters in front of these schools and start an agitation to revive them. The programme will start from tomorrow (Saturday) and if needed students will involve guardians to lead a larger movement,” state SFI president Pratikur Rahaman said addressing a news conference.

According to a report prepared by the SFI, several issues including the pandemic have brought down curtains on 8,207 state-aided schools.

Citing data from government sources the report claims that these schools were closed because the number of students in these institutions had come down to 30 or less. Eventually, the report concluded that the closure of these schools was a result of over 22 lakh students dropping out of the education system. The SFI also demanded the abolition of the new National Education Policy of the Narendra Modi government.

To press for these demands the SFI organised a march to the Assembly on Friday but the police made preventive arrests at several places in Calcutta and Howrah to foil the march that was denied permission on the grounds of the ongoing board examinations.

The police action led to skirmishes between the two sides and a group of activists, led by SFI state secretary Srijan Bhattacharya, gave cops the slip and reached the main gate of the Assembly.

The police arrested several SFI leaders including its national general secretaryMayukh Biswas, joint secretary Dipsita Dhar and Bhattacharya.

According to SFI’s estimates, 24 people were lodged at the Shibpur police station and 97 at the police headquarters in Lalbazar.

“We had challenged the police that we will reach the Assembly and we did it,” Rahaman said.

The arrested activists were later released from both police stations. However, Dhar and other women activists alleged that male police officers had manhandled them.