West Bengal To Revise School Curriculum From January 2027, Add Syama Prasad Mookerjee, Remove Singur

The West Bengal government is set to introduce a revised school curriculum from January 2, 2027, with lessons on Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee’s life, contributions and legacy to be added to textbooks across classes. The overhaul will also remove chapters on the Singur land movement and the Kanyashree scheme, while changing prescribed literary works and portions dealing with communism and the Mughal period.

The changes have been proposed by the state’s Syllabus-cum-Curriculum Committee, which is overseeing the revision. Education Minister Deepak Burman said the committee was handling the exercise.

“The entire thing is being looked after by the syllabus committee. Once it comes to me, I will see,” Burman said.

The committee has framed the overhaul as an effort to give greater emphasis to Indian culture, values and the contributions of freedom fighters.

Syama Prasad Mookerjee To Feature In Textbooks

Committee chairperson Professor Debashis Chatterjee told The Indian Express that references to Mookerjee, who founded the Bharatiya Jana Sangh in 1951, will be placed at the beginning of textbooks across classes.

“In all textbooks, at the beginning, there will be a write-up on Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee so that students know about him. This will be in textbooks of every class,” Chatterjee said.

The move follows a Higher Education Department notification directing state-aided schools, colleges and universities to include Mookerjee’s life and contributions in their academic programmes. The notification also called for outreach programmes to familiarise students with his contributions and asked institutions to submit action-taken reports.

The curriculum revision follows the change in government in West Bengal and is part of a wider restructuring of school syllabi.

Singur, Kanyashree Chapters To Be Removed

Under the proposed changes, the chapter on the Singur land movement in the Class 8 history textbook will be removed. The chapter was introduced in 2017 under the previous Trinamool Congress government.

The Singur movement was led by then Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee against the Left Front government's acquisition of land for the Tata Motors project.

The Kanyashree scheme, currently covered in health and hygiene textbooks for Classes 6 to 8, will also be dropped. Launched by the West Bengal government in 2013, Kanyashree is a conditional cash-transfer programme aimed at supporting the education and wellbeing of adolescent girls.

“The Singur chapter, which was added in the Class 8 textbooks, will be removed; so will the chapter on Kanyashree,” Chatterjee said.

The overhaul also proposes changes to Bengali language textbooks, including replacing some words that the committee considers less commonly used in everyday Bengali. Chatterjee cited proposed changes such as replacing “pani” with “jol”, along with changes involving words such as “amma” and “abba”.

Several prescribed literary works will also be changed. Rabindranath Tagore’s poem Africa is proposed to be replaced in the Madhyamik syllabus by Shivaji Utsav, while Sachindranath Sengupta’s play Sirajdoulla will be replaced by Dwijendralal Ray’s Mebar Patan.

The committee has also proposed changes to portions on communism and the Mughal period and greater emphasis on personalities associated with India’s freedom struggle.

Chatterjee said the revised syllabus would seek to address what the committee viewed as gaps in the representation of India’s freedom movement.

Several Bengali and English-language chapters have already been sent to the state government for approval, while the committee is expected to submit the remaining portions shortly.