Jamshedpur: The Jharkhand Bangabhasi Samanvaya Samity, an apex body of Bengali associations today demanded re-opening of Bengali medium schools across the state.
President of the samity Bikash Mukherjee said that the state government should take steps to start Bengali medium schools with classes till XII.
According to an estimate, over a 1,000-odd Bengali medium schools have been either closed or converted into Hindi and English mediums since 1990.
” We are fighting for the cause of Bengali medium schools since Jharkhand was carved out of Bihar 17 years ago. Though Bengali has been granted a second language status in the state but there are no Bengali medium schools where students can get education on their mother tongue,” said the senior functionary of the samity.
Incidentally, the samity had also lodged a PIL in this regard with the Jharkhand High Court in August last year. In July this year the high court had asked the state government to clear its stand on the issue. But, the state government was yet to reply to the high court.
He said that the available infrastructure in linguistic minority schools is pathetic. Steps need to be taken to improve the situation. Before partition of the state, there existed a strong education system under the Patna Board of Secondary Education where Bangla, Urdu and Oriya, were a regular medium of education for the community of such linguistic students.
But it is really sad that after the formation of Jharkhand , the education system for such linguistic minorities gradually started collapsing in absence of syllabus, text books, teachers and basic infrastructure for running schools.