Jhargram: WBBPE to re-conduct one D.El.Ed paper for Santhali medium pupils

Kolkata: The West Bengal Board of Primary Education (WBBPE) will re-conduct one paper of the Diploma in Elementary Education (D.El.Ed.) Part-II exams for the 2023–25 session, exclusively for Santhali medium students of the District Institute of Education and Training (DIET), West Midnapore, Jhargram located at Ramgarh.

The decision comes after Santhali medium students boycotted the first paper of the exam, demanding that question papers be provided in Ol Chiki, the written script of their language.

They also staged a road blockade, alleging that the Board had supplied question papers only in English and Bengali. Following the protest, WBBPE arranged for Ol Chiki translations of the next two papers, which the students went on to write. Officials confirmed that the re-examination will be held only for those who missed the first paper. The subject in question is CC-02 (Educational Studies), which was originally scheduled for August 12. The re-test will now be conducted on August 22 (Friday), from 12 noon to 3 pm, at the same centre. Although more than 33,000 students appeared for the Part-II exams across 120 centres in the state, only about 40–50 Santhali medium students from DIET, Paschim Medinipur had raised the demand for question papers in their language.

In its notification marked “urgent”, the Board said the re-exam was being conducted for candidates who could not appear earlier “due to unavoidable circumstances.”