Author: Swapan Samadder Chaudhury
Publication: The Organiser
Date: December 7, 2003
Academics holding responsible posts
in universities of West Bengal and representatives of Government and sponsored
colleges laid bare the heinous Marxist design to destroy excellence in
higher education by promoting mediocrity at every level of teaching and
administration. These academics, met at a one-day convention, organised
by Jatiyatabadi Adhyapak-O-Gabeshak Sangh in Kolkata on November 8, were
unanimous that as part of their long-term strategy to create disrespect
for the present system of education among students and ultimately to destroy
it, the Marxists, after successfully reducing primary and secondary education
to a farce, have now targeted higher education as their next "operation-destroy"
mission.
Participating in the discussion,
Dr Chitta Ranjan Mondal, Secretary, Jadavpur University Teachers' Association,
said that the Left Front Government was trying to destroy the university
from within. "Funds allocated for improving the teaching infrastructure
are being diverted. Standards set for appointment of university teachers
are not observed. Thirty to forty per cent of teaching posts are lying
vacant and the authorities do not intend to fill up these posts. Research
work has come to a stop," he pointed out.
Dr Debasish Bhattacharya, Secretary,
Vishwa Bharati Adhyapak Sabha, related similar experiences. He said that
the present Vice-Chancellor functioned directly under the direction of
the CPM MP, Somnath Chatterjee, despite it being a Central university.
Here too funds are being diverted, he alleged. Prof Binoy Chakraborty of
government College and Prof Bimal Sankar Nanda of Private College said
that though the Central Government released funds in 1998 to pay the revised
pay scales, the Left Front Government of West Bengal had not yet paid 20
per cent of the salary to the college and university teachers. They also
charged the Government with naked nepotism in appointment.
Earlier inaugurating the, convention,
Minister of State for Science and Technology, Satyabrata Mukherjee, said
that the Left Front Government in West Bengal made much of the Nobel Laureate
Amartya Sen, but ironically it was the "Pratichi Trust", set up by Amartya
Sen, that held political intervention by the CPM-led Government squarely
responsible for the poor and horrible state of primary education in the
State. The scenario in the field of higher education is also not very inspiring
either, the Minister lamented and added that students are leaving the State
for pursuing higher education elsewhere. Shri Mukherjee also lamented how
the Presidency College, pride of the country, where top-grade teachers
used to teach, has been shorn of its former glory by the Marxist Government
and has been brought down to the level of any other college of West Bengal.
In this context Shri Mukherjee referred to the attempt by the Communists
and the secularists' to malign the efforts of Dr M. M. Joshi to reform
and upgrade the syllabi of schools as saffronisation, it charge that has
been nullified by the apex court. He also deliberated upon the steps taken
by the Vajpayee Government, which have far-reaching consequences.
The most important among them are-first, education up to 14 years of age
has been made a fundamental right and second, all people in the age group
of 15 to 35 will have to be made literate.
The Leader of the Opposition in
West Bengal Assembly, Pankoj Banerjee of Trinamool Congress, in his brief
address thanked the organisers for beginning the convention with Saraswati
Vandana. Elaborating on the miserable conditions prevailing in schools
in West Bengal, he said out of 51,000 primary schools in the West Bengal
19,000 have no buildings, 13,000 schools are one teacher schools.
More than one, crore students enter in primary schools every year, but
barely five lakh students appear for the school final examination, which
means 95 per cent students drop out of their studies, surely a feather
to the Left Front Government's cap of achievements, said Shri Banerjee.
He also made a comparative study of various medical, engineering, management
and software institutes in West Bengal and other States and exposed the
hollowness of the Left Front Government's claim about the intake and output
of these institutes. The facilities and standard of these engineering colleges
are so miserable that most of them do not get students, he said.
Prof Tathagata Roy, Vice-President
of the organisation and State BJP President, mounted a virulent attack
on the Communists saying that nothing is out of the ambit of politics in
Left thinking. Stating that it is really sickening to hear the Communists
waxing eloquent on their pet theory that politics permeates every sphere
of human activity, he said that this mindset particularly vitiated the
education world in the State. He maintained that the Communists, of course,
feel no qualms of conscience since they have been assiduously trying to
promote mediocrity and gleefully building up chaos in the academic world.
Prof. Roy lamented that the education system has lost its credibility in
the State. One after another scandals in examining answer-sheets and preparation
of results at school final, college and university exams started leaking
out. In his welcome address Shri Ajit Biswas, Organising Secretary, said
a teachers' organisation should think about education and must not function
as a trade union.
