NfN NETWORK
Chakdaha, April 27: In an initiative to begin the learning process for the children in English from the early childhood, the Nadia administration today launched the first ever state aided English medium primary school in the district.
The school titled – Madanpur English medium prmary school, which is also first of its kind in the state, today started functioning with 60students and 3 teachers in Madanpur under Chakdah block. Located in Govindapur-II gram panchayat, the school will be temporarily housed in a building owned by the education department.
All the three teachers appointed by the schools are graduates with honors in English.
The English language for over become a bone of contention and political controversy since the Left Front government withdrawn it from the primary level as a ‘non-compulsory’ language. The language was later brought back to the primary school, but the language remained a fearsome one to children and their parents largely in rural areas.
In last year the state government announced that it would introduce primary education in English by setting up English medium schools across the state. The district level primary education councils were instructed to prepare infrastructure so that classes could be started from this academic year.
Nadia district primary school council chairman Ramaprasad Roy said: “Pursuing the state government decision we sent a proposal for setting up four English medium primary schools, each for one subdivision, but so far one has been approved”.
“We have made a fresh proposal for seeking approval for at least six new English medium schools as well as converting existing five schools into English medium so that more children could be admitted”, council chairman Roy added.
“Our aim is to set up such english medium schools in rural areas as far as possible so the people from rural and poor economic background could be encouraged to get their son admitted considering the importance of the language”, Roy said.
Euphoric about the new school local MLA and former teacher Ramendra Nath Biswas said: “This is a major initiative which will help to bring the English medium schooling within the reach of the financially week classes. The learning in English would also help the children to get admitted in the English medium school at the Madhyamik level where the state government has already introduced English as medium of learning”
While the council set up primary school in English medium, it from January this year has introduced a mandatory ten minutes special English speaking session in all the schools so that children can learn to express their basic understanding clearly and speak confidently about their affairs in daily life.
The special session which has been started at the 2624 primary schools in the district clubbing all the students of the school after the last period is actually aimed to overcome their fear about the English language and to introduce the language as a ‘utility tool’ in their daily life.