Amid several controversies, the state government today appointed Prof Chiranjib Bhattacharya, pro-vice-chancellor of Jadavpur University as the new president of the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education in
place of Mahua Das.
Prof Bhattacharya has been appointed for a period of four years. He will take charge as the council president from Monday. Incumbent Das has been gripped by controversies ever since the publication of the Higher Secondary (HS) results from this year.
To start with, a row had erupted over Das’s alleged communal profiling of the HS topper. While announcing the results, she had stated that a girl from Murshidabad had scored the highest marks of 499 out of 509. However, while celebrating her achievement, she went on to mention the girl’s religion at least thrice.
The alleged “communal profiling” of the student did not go well with different sections of society and the West Bengal Imam’s Association issued a strong statement demanding her resignation.
Next, the marking scheme devised by the council to calculate the board marks on the basis of the scores in Madhyamik, Class XI annual exam and Class XII project or practical marks had initially left around 20,000 candidates unsuccessful. Candidates complained that it was unjustified for them to fail without appearing in the exam and students had launched a widespread protest across the state.
As the situation aggravated, state chief secretary HK Dwivedi had to intervene.
Ms Das was called at Nabanna to discuss the problem. Finally, the council had to reconsider its evaluation methodology and all the HS students were declared qualified. Das has served as the council president for eight years.