Bihar Government Revises Decision on Intermediate Education in Colleges After Students’ Protest

After a month of widespread protests by students across Bihar against the resolution issued by the state’s education department to discontinue intermediate education in colleges under various state universities, a notification was issued on Thursday, relaxing the norms.

The latest notification allows students enrolled in colleges for the 2023-25 session to choose between switching to secondary schools after Class 12 or continuing their education in the same institution. Previously, all Class 11 students in colleges were mandated to transfer to higher secondary schools, a move that sparked significant backlash from students.

Reacting to the protests, Deputy CM Samrat Choudhary assured students that their demands would be addressed, considering that they had already completed half of their course in colleges. Consequently, a letter was issued by the secondary education director, announcing the option for college students pursuing intermediate education, which was previously unavailable in the Online Facilitation System for Students (OFSS) portal launched on March 21.

The fresh notification implies that intermediate education in colleges will continue for one more year to accommodate the rhetoric 2023-25 batches. However, colleges will not admit fresh students for the 2024-2026 batch, and the phase-out process from colleges will commence from the following year.

Earlier, on February 21, the department had issued a resolution stating that intermediate education would solely be imparted in higher secondary schools from the new session starting April 1, 2024. This resolution was officially notified in the state gazette.

The decision to phase out intermediate education from colleges aligns with the 1986 National Education Policy of 10+2+3. In 2007, during the tenure of late Madan Mohan Jha as principal secretary of the erstwhile Human Resource Development department, the government initiated a policy shift to conform to the CBSE format for plus two education. This reform included the dissolution of the Bihar Intermediate Council and the integration of Bihar School Examination Board for both Class 10 and plus two, similar to the CBSE and ICSE systems.

Despite Patna University’s early adoption of the delinking of intermediate education from its degree colleges in 2007, the implementation of this policy across other universities in the state faced delays, taking nearly 17 years to come into effect.