‘Detoxification’, attained political connotation just after the BJP-led NDA rule in Delhi with Left leaning and Congress intellectuals, appears set to visit erstwhile Left state West Bengal.
It became apparent, when on Friday chief minister Mamata Banerjee hinted at a major detoxification campaign in the state’s school education system as she decided to strip panchayats of the power to run primary and secondary schools, which had no links with the state education departments.
“For thirty-five years they (the CPI-M) have reduced the school education system to a scandalous level,’’ she said.
“We have decided to bring the entire school education system under one umbrella, even the panchayat-run schools,’’ the CM added.
Incidentally, the panchayat run schools — ‘a little over 20,000 in all’ — so far not only contributed to a major number of dropouts in the state at the secondary-level as students did not always get admissions in the state-run schools but scripted a virtual education disconnect for a huge number of rural students.
“We have seen they (these schools) do not have proper infrastructure and cannot coordinate so they should come under the state education department,’’ she said.
What, however, she left unsaid has been the way CPI(M) used these panchayat run-schools to promote their loyal men as teachers who could be both unfit for teaching and educationally ill-equipped. And their only qualification which would have mattered most would be that they are loyal to the party.
She gave explicit hints that the system would be detoxified: “But we would require time to put things back on rails, I would request all to give us sometime,’’ she said, explaining what would be the policy of the government to recruit new school teachers.
“We will also plan up for the higher education,’’ she said, announcing that from now on retired teachers would start getting pension from the first month instead of awaiting it for years.
Officials said the state government office, looking into sanction of pension for retired teachers — have at least “52,000 pension files awaiting clearance”.
