West Bengal: Bankura Police engages civic volunteers as teachers in primary schools, sparks controversy

The Bankura Police announced the 'Ankur' project on Wednesday. A total of 46 schools have already been identified where civic volunteers will teach the primary level students.

Community centers have also been identified where the classes will be conducted.

There are reportedly concerns about the state police's involvement in matters pertaining to education, as their responsibilities are primarily focused on maintaining law and order.

Asked about the matter, Bankura Superintendent of Police Vaibhav Tiwari said 'Ankur' is a special initiative of Bankura SP in coordination with “Nanritam” to provide free coaching to primary school students on English and Maths in different places of the district.

A total of 124 educated civic volunteers have been selected for conducting the supplementary classes for the primary students, he said.

The West Bengal Police also tweeted about the initiative.

"Civic volunteers are fairly educated. They are also good at studies. They have been selected carefully. Our main aim was to identify schools in every police station area. Keeping this in mind, we have chosen at least one school each in the LWE-affected five police station areas of Khatra Subdivision, including Ranibandh, Raipur, Simlapal, and Sarenga. We have selected one or two schools each in other police station areas,” the Bankura SP elaborated.

Books to be used as teaching aid by civic volunteers. ( Image tweeted by @WBPolice)

Tiwari said the selected civic volunteers are residents of the area. Since they live in the area, they won’t need to go far and can easily spend an hour or two every day teaching primary school students.

West Bengal Assembly Opposition leader Suvendu Adhikari has criticised the decision to use civic volunteers for the purpose of teaching school students.

Slamming the decision, the BJP leader alleged that the move is a ploy to further reduce the quality of education in the state government-run schools so that no one takes admission to these institutions.

In a tweet, Adhikari wrote: "# No. of Students appearing for Madhyamik Exam has shrunk by 4 lakh # 8207 state run schools in WB have student strength below 30 With Civic Volunteers tasked to conduct supplementary classes for Primary Level Students, WB Govt plans to shut down Govt aided education completely."