Mamata meets Pranab over legality of teachers' institutes

Bombay News.Net
Saturday 3rd January, 2009 (IANS)

West Bengal's principal opposition Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee Saturday met External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee to discuss the threatened closure of 138 primary teachers' training institutes (PTTIs) in the state following a court order declaring them illegal.

According to sources close to Banerjee, she was likely to seek Mukherjee's intervention in the matter.

The Calcutta High Court has declared all the 138 PTTIs in West Bengal as illegal as they did not have the necessary approvals from the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE).

With the court's ruling, the future of about 75,000-odd people, comprising 45,000 primary teachers and 30,000 students in West Bengal, has become uncertain.

The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) had also sought the central government's intervention in the matter.

Subsequently, the Trinamool Congress also demanded a solution, saying both the central and state governments should sit together and resolve the PTTI row as it concerned the livelihood of thousands of people.

The Trinamool chief had also met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during his short stay at Raj Bhavan in early December last year and sought his help in resolving the impasse.

Meanwhile, political circles were also agog with speculation that Banerjee and Mukherjee's parleys could form the backdrop of an an electoral tie-up between the Congress and Trinamool Congress in the Lok Sabha poll later this year.

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