Modi, on Friday will address students of 3,000 schools and colleges of New Delhi.
The rift between the West Bengal and Central government widened further on Thursday, when the state education department directed all state-run schools and colleges to ignore the directive of the Union Human Resource Development (HRD) asking all state governments to make arrangements for students to listen to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech, dubbed as Pariksha Par Charcha on Friday.
Modi, on Friday will address students of 3,000 schools and colleges of New Delhi, on how to beat examination stress and Union HRD has directed all states to live telecast the speech on different platforms.
West Bengal, has, however, chosen to be an exception and has sent a notification to all schools and colleges asking them to ignore the HRD notification. State education minister Partha Chatterjee said that it was that time of the year when students were preparing for their board examinations and it would not be good to distract them. “There are exams going on and many students are preparing for Madhyamik (Class X) and Higher Secondary (Class XII) examinations. No one is ready for speeches. It is not a good idea to bring them to a particular place and make them listen to such speeches,” Chatterjee said.
West Bengal government had earlier too defied Centre’s similar directives. In June, 2017, after Shri Shikshayatan School played Modi’s ‘Mann ki Baat’ for students, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, during a meeting with different school authorities had said, “I heard Shri Shikshayatan principal is playing video of the speech of a political leader and forcing students to watch it. This is not fair.” She had also added that even her speech should not be played at schools because those were political programmes and would not be of any educational use.
On September 8, 2017, the state education department asked schools and colleges to ignore the University Grants Commission (UGC) directive to educational institutions for live televising PM’s speech on September 11, marking the 125th anniversary of Swami Vivekananda’s speech at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago. Chatterjee, at that time had stopped it saying that it was another step towards saffronisation of education.
Again West Bengal education department asked institutions to ignore the Union HRD directive for conducting unity run to observe “Nation Salutes Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel” on October 31, 2017 on his birth anniversary. The educational institutions had also been directed to organise plays based on that theme, make video- recording of the event and send the same to the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Chatterjee, at that time had said that the state government would celebrate Sardar Patel’s birth anniversary in its own way and not as per the directive of the Union government.
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