Committee to sign Hindi school form

Deb at the meeting in Siliguri on Thursday. (Kundan Yolmo)

TT, Siliguri, Nov. 6: A three-member committee was formed today to verify and attest registration forms of Class IX and XI students of Siliguri Hindi High School for Madhyamik and Higher Secondary exams.

The committee with the senior-most state government-approved teacher of the school and a representative each of the district inspector of schools for Siliguri and the subdivisional officer of Siliguri was constituted according to a resolution passed at a meeting convened by minister Gautam Deb here today.

“The school has been having problems since 2003 ... It had lot of problems with status, teachers and students all these years but the earlier government (Left Front) did nothing,” Deb said.

“The immediate problem is regarding attestation of registration forms. We have appointed three members, the senior most school teacher and representatives of the DI and SDO. They will begin verification of forms and all the three will attest them from Monday. The deadline for the submission of forms (to the council and board) is November 19. The forms signed by them will be accepted by WBBSE and WBCHSE,” he said.

The West Bengal Board of Secondary Education and the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education had refused to accept registration forms of 400-odd students and put them on hold as they had been attested by the school headmaster whose appointment had not been approved by the state government.

The problem started when B.P. Dalmiya, the school’s managing committee secretary, replaced Baisakhi Das, a state government-approved teacher in-charge, and appointed Akhilesh Chaturvedi, a retired teacher, as the headmaster saying the school enjoyed linguistic minority status and could function without the interference of the state.

The DI, Pran Gobindo Sarkar, had sent letters to WBBSE and WBCHSE saying Chaturvedi had been appointed illegally and his signature was not valid.

On Monday, students of the school blocked Jalpai More here for nearly three hours demanding a state government-approved teacher in-charge so that the registrations could be done. Deb instructed SDO Deepap Priya P. to convene a meeting today to discuss the issues.

Today, the DI, Sandipan Bhattacharya, the president of Siliguri Hindi High School Guardians’ Committee and officials of the local administration and school education department attended the meeting. Dalmiya and his son Sitaram, also a member of the managing committee, were also present.

Another meeting would be held with Deb on November 20 or 21. “There are other long pending issues which will be discussed. We need to hold at least three such meetings to discuss the issues,” Deb said.

In January, the managing committee increased the annual fee from Rs 1,300 to Rs 1,900 for old students and from Rs 5,000 to Rs 5,525 for new admissions to Class VI. Parents had refused to pay the hiked fees and demanded that the annual fee be Rs 240 like in all government-aided institutions .

The managing committee has stopped paying salaries to its 13 contract teachers since March and parents have been paying interest-free loans to them equivalent to their monthly salaries for the past eight months.