New Delhi (Agency): The West Bengal Education Department has officially announced a new State Education Policy (SEP) while choosing to keep its existing 5+4+2+2 structure for school education. This decision came after extensive deliberation and recommendations from an expert committee set up by the state government.
In April 2022, the West Bengal government established a committee of distinguished academics, including Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Sugata Bose, and Suranjan Das. This committee’s role was to guide the state’s response to the National Education Policy that replaced the 34-year-old National Policy on Education in 2020.
According to the official notice, the new SEP “aims to ensure a higher standard of education for all students, with particular focus on marginalized, disadvantaged, and under-represented groups.” The policy will begin with one year of pre-primary education, followed by four years of primary education up to class 4, two years of secondary education, and two years of higher secondary education.
One notable change is the inclusion of the first two years of education at an Anganwadi center, followed by one year of pre-primary education. However, the rest of the structure—primary, upper primary, secondary, and higher secondary—will remain the same.
In higher education, classes 11 and 12 will feature semester-level exams to ease the transition from school to university. These exams will include multiple-choice questions and descriptive questions. The policy also introduces a three-language formula for students in classes 5 to 8, depending on available infrastructure. The mother tongue will serve as the medium of instruction, and students will have the choice of a second language and a third language.
For students who use other mediums of instruction, the policy suggests introducing Bengali as a subject from class 1. Moreover, a 4+1 formula for higher education has been proposed, where undergraduate honors courses will last four years instead of three, and postgraduate courses will take one year instead of two.
Expert Committee member Aveek Majumder expressed satisfaction that the government had accepted all their recommendations. “We hope our recommendations will help our students to be on par with their counterparts nationally and globally,” he said.
The new SEP represents an effort to modernize education in West Bengal while preserving its unique characteristics, with the ultimate goal of enhancing educational standards and opportunities for all.