Students in Rampurhat of Birbhum district in West Bengal took to the streets last week with posters and placards. Their demand however, was unique: they wanted government school teachers to resume offering private tuition.
The unusual protest reflects the sad picture of the country’s education system, government apathy and the system of teaching in schools that leads children to become heavily dependent on private tuition. For higher classes, this is all the more a problem as classes in schools never seem to be enough. Teachers from government-run schools too, offer tuition despite the rules forbidding them to do so.
In Rampurhat, the teachers of state government-run schools had stopped offering private tuition following protests by the West Bengal Private Tutors’ Welfare Association. The association – comprising teachers from private schools and private tutors who do not teach in schools – had put up posters in schools and circulated on social media the names of government school teachers who offered private tuition. A list of names was also submitted to the district magistrate pointing out that they were flouting rules.
This made government school teachers stop offering private tuition. But the impact has been far-reaching. The decision has mostly inconvenienced students of the higher classes who are preparing to appear for their Secondary and Higher Secondary Examinations. The students became agitated and unable to accept that teachers who have so long provided them with private tuition won’t be available anymore to guide them.
Demanding that the school teachers be allowed to provide private tuition, the students blocked some arterial roads of Rampurhat, obstructing movement of traffic and stopped office-goers from entering workplaces where they sat on dharna.
Later, they decided to withdraw the agitation after almost an-hour-and-a-half, following the intervention of an official in the SDO’s (sub-divisional officer) office. Police had by then intervened and took six of the agitating students to the office. They decided to call off their agitation programme following assurance that the matter will be looked into.
A West Bengal Private Tutors’ Welfare Association spokesperson said that the purpose of the body was not to inconvenience students, but to ensure that rules are not flouted.
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