The Kolkata Primary Education Council has decided to shut down 32 primary schools in the city after they failed to enroll the minimum number of students.
Most of the closed schools are located in areas like Burrabazar in central Kolkata, Behala in west, Naktala in south and Chiriamore in north.
“In some schools there are teachers but the number of students is very less, sometimes as low as 4 to 5. We have declared only those schools defunct where not even a minimum number of students are enrolled,” said Durgapada Dutta, former chairman of Kolkata Primary Education Council. Although the council has not declared the names of the schools that will be shut down, some of the schools that are in the list are Bartolla School and Miranagar School in Behala where the number of students is less than 10.
“We have identified 50 such schools which cannot be run in their present condition. So these schools have to be merged with the nearest ones to maintain the teacher student ratio,” said Samar Chakraborty, Kolkata district president of All Bengal Primary Teachers Association (ABPTA) and member of Primary Education Council.
Since the last five years, the number of primary schools in the city has remained stagnant at 1,200. Even the strength of students in these schools has remained almost constant at 1,60,000. Of these 1,200 schools, only 80 schools provide mid-day meal to the children.
“There are certain areas where the number of schools have increased. The requirement of schools has changed. The influence of private English medium schools cannot be neglected, while considering low enrollment in government-run schools,” said Partho De, state school education minister.
Some of the teachers blame the government’s decision of not teaching English at the primary education level. “The state government’s decision to remove English at the primary level is one of reason why students are going for private institutes,” said Bhimsen Biswal , Kolkata District President of the West Bengal Teachers Association (WBTA).