The school education department is also planning to increase the number of school inspectors and create a new post solely to assess the teaching-learning capabilities in schools.

In another important move, the department has decided to bifurcate the syllabus of class IX and X and change the academic session in schools across the state from May-April to January-December.

“The decision of bifurcating the syllabus of class IX and class X is linked with changing the academic session from May-April to January-December. These decisions will be implemented as quickly as possible,” said School Education Minister Partha De.

The minister made these announcements after a meeting of representatives of 15 teachers’ unions across the state and the officials of West Bengal Board of Secondary Education and West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education. According to him, teachers will have to assess themselves on a monthly basis and the details will have to be submitted to the district offices and subsequently to the department.

Certain teachers’ organisations, however, complained about not having adequate number of teachers in the schools across the state. “We have sufficient teachers at the secondary and higher secondary stage. So far as primary education is concerned, we have a problem,” De said.

According to sources, most of the teachers’ organisations along with the members of the boards have agreed on the change of the academic session. Only the CPM-backed All Bengal Teachers Association (ABTA) voiced reservations about such a change.

The minister said that new textbooks on mathematics from Class I onwards will be prepared in the same way as textbooks of English, i.e., in consultation with the British Council. Teachers will be trained across the state to work as resource persons and train more teachers in turn on a more scientific basis to use the new books, sources said.

B C Roy PTTI gets nod for training course
Kolkata: The West Bengal Board of Primary Education today informed the Calcutta High Court that it has given affiliation to the B C Roy Primary Teachers Training Institute (PTTI), Hooghly, in compliance with the court’s order.