Baishali Mukherjee

Significant changes have been made in higher secondary education of West Bengal in the last one year. The aim was to align the curricula with the new state education policy proposed by the state government last August. Accordingly, the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education (WBCHSE)  has introduced the semester system replacing annual examinations. In March this year, WBCHSE announced the introduction of a semester system for 11th-grade starting from the academic year 2024-2025. According to Chiranjib Bhattacharya, president WBCHSE, the semester system for 12th-grade classes will be introduced in the academic session of 2025-2026. With the semester-based system, the existing annual examination will be divided into two semesters.

The approach to teaching learning has also undergone sea change over time. Several new subjects like Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Data Science have been added to the higher secondary curriculum this year. Moreover, the existing syllabi of many subjects have been rehashed. However, since new teachers have not been appointed in the government schools to teach these subjects, the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education (WBCHSE) has decided to train the existing teachers.

The process of training school teachers has already begun. According to the Council President, Chiranjib Bhattacharya, “Training on Artificial Intelligence (AI), Data Science, and the application of AI have already been conducted earlier this year. On December 10, training on the “Science of Well-Being” started at the WBCHSE office in Salt Lake.”

Speaking on the importance of teacher training, WBCHSE Secretary, Priyadarshini Mallik said, “The newly introduced subjects in higher secondary education need to be taught in a way that encourages and motivates students. To make the training-learning process more effective in school education, teachers of a host of existing subjects like Geography, Bioscience, Environmental Science, Psychology, and Human Development from various schools will also be trained in phases.”

The state academia has welcomed the move as a much needed initiative to strengthen the languishing education sector of West Bengal. With teachers recruitment stymied for years due to the multi crore TET scam, the school education in the state is in shambles with steady rise in dropouts and shutting down of schools due to lack of students. The number of students appearing for board exams both for class 10 and 12 have steadily decreased in the last three years, particularly after the 99 weeks school down in Bengal during Covid19 pandemic. Moreover, the dropout rates are higher among boys who do not receive any monetary awards for qualifying the  board exams.