Govt looks to end 'lottery admission' system for class I

Kolkata: The state government is mulling the idea of withdrawing 'admission through lottery' and ushering in merit-based admission process in class I.

State Education minister Partha Chatterjee said this in the Assembly on Monday, in reply to a remark from an Opposition MLA that there has been a deterioration in the standard of education in government schools due to admission through lottery and first-come-first-serve basis of admission.

"The reputation of a school depends on good students. As all the students are admitted through lottery, the schools don't have the option to choose students according to their merit. Naturally, the standard of the good schools is going down. I shall speak with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on this issue," Chatterjee said.

According to the Education minister, this aspect of the education standard is also contributing towards the tendency among parents to admit their wards in private English medium schools. "Even the poor parents are sending their children to English medium schools," he maintained.

Sources in the Education department said that the government is of the opinion of withdrawing the lottery system, at least in some of the top ranking schools across the state.

"Initially, a portion of the seats might be reserved for meritorious students and the rest of the admission will be done through lottery. Eventually it will be withdrawn fully,"

a senior government official said.

In Bengal, lottery is held for pre-primary in all schools. "In case of some government, government-aided or government-sponsored schools which do not have primary classes attached, lottery is done for admissions till class V," said a source in School Education department.

Chatterjee further said that the state government is thinking of introducing an evaluation system for the schools in the state. Sources in the Education department said that the evaluation will be done by the district inspector (DI), the sub-inspector of schools (SI) and the headmaster (HM) of the concerned school.

A committee comprising the DI, SI and other senior officials will go on an inspection for external evaluation and the internal evaluation will be done by the HM. Thereafter, the schools will be evaluated and put on separate levels.

Responding to a poser on introduction of detention system in state schools, Chatterjee said that the government is in favour of bringing back the pass fail system, but has not yet finalised which class it will be introduced in.

A committee has been formed in this regard, led by Soma Bandyopadhyay, the vice-chancellor of West Bengal University of Teachers' Training, Education Planning and Administration.