Teachers want session back from January

KOLKATA: The academic session in primary schools should be reverted to January instead of May to ease the burden on students and teachers and for better utilisation of available teaching days. With the practice of private tuition by school teachers made illegal by the government, this much-debated issue has come to the fore once again. "Not only will changing the academic year increase number of teaching days so that students can cope up with the syllabus pressure, it will enhance the efficiency of teachers," said Secondary Teachers and Employee Association (STEA) secretary Ratan Laskar.According to Laskar, the current session beginning in May is not a good start for students because immediately after that there is summer vacation, which results in students remaining idle for a long time. "On the other hand teachers are overtaxed especially between March to May because they have to conduct school examinations and their evaluation along with demands of the Madhyamik examination," he said. Students will also get an additional bonus period till March for Madhyamik preparations, if the syllabus is completed by December. The academic environment in West Bengal is also better suited for an academic session beginning in January as more than 80 percent students belong to rural areas. "With the harvest season at the calendar-year end, farmers and small peasants are in better financial position to invest in study material for their children then," Laskar said. The debate on the issue began in late fifties when government shifted it to May on account of better climatic conditions from November-February. The new academic session in Bengal was fixed in January before that. But strong opposition from educationists, parents and associations including All Bengal Teachers Association (ABTA) compelled them to revert back to the previous schedule in 1961. In 1990 the session again was shifted to May to ensure parity of the state's education in All-India level and has continued ever since. ABTA president Kshama Bhattacharya agreed that May was not an appropriate time for a new academic session with summer vacation following immediately after it. "We have recommended that the session-break should be shifted to July for best interests of students and teachers," she said.