In Tripura, Gau Vigyan Gets a Government Push While Schools Crumble

Agartala: A Tripura Secondary Education Directorate memo dated April 15 proposed to every secondary and higher secondary school that they hold workshops and seminars on the 'benefits of cows' in partnership with the Deshi Gobansha Rakshan Sambardhan Samity, a self-styled cow protection organisation in Agartala. 

This came after a month had passed since the new academic year began on April 1. Students were yet to get supplied textbooks while the summer vacation was just days away. Over 10,000 teachers had retired in recent years, and about another 10,000 teachers had been sacked after a court directive, leaving schools to grapple with a severe shortage. 

In the circular (Memo No. F.1/…/2025 dated 15/04/2025), Tripura’s Directorate of Secondary Education asked schools to consider hosting workshops on ‘the benefits of cows and their products’.

The circular by Tripura’s Directorate of Secondary Education.

The government body also forwarded a representation from the Deshi Gobansha Rakshan Sambardhan Samity, seeking permission to ‘promote' deshi cows’ Panchagavya (cow milk, curd, ghee, urine and dung) and ‘train’ students to ‘self-establish’ in ‘Gau Vigyan’.

The Samity sought blanket permission for such workshops in all schools including at the primary level.

The Deshi Gobansha Rakshan Sambardhan Samity's note.

The director of secondary education, N.C. Sharma, has been repeatedly reappointed after his retirement. The memo issued by Sharma instructs district education officers to inform principals and headmasters that such programmes “may be considered strictly at the discretion of the School Management Committees.”

Critics said that the move was quite a push for a certain political agenda, otherwise such a demand would not have found a foothold in schools. It is noteworthy that the decision is left to School Management Committees (SMCs) – most of which are stacked with Bharatiya Janata Party loyalists. 

For instance, BJP state president Rajib Bhattacherjee is the SMC chairman and former BJP MLA Dilip Das is the secretary of a very famous school.

Why now?

Questions are being raised by teachers themselves. What pressing need has suddenly arisen that the education directorate needed to give such weight to a little-known group's request – especially when many schools still had not received basic textbooks.

Disseminating information about the benefits of deshi cows is hardly an emergent educational priority. If it were truly important, biology teachers and the Animal Welfare Department – which has the mandate and expertise – could have been roped in. 

There is no clarity on what kind of knowledge this particular organisation intends to impart. There is no indication that the education department has vetted its credentials or curriculum. Had any such due diligence been done, the information would surely have been shared with schools in a structured format. Instead, what has appeared is that the organisation’s letter has been forwarded.

There are, however, actual crises on the ground. Official data shows that 4,656 new teachers have been recruited in the last five years to replace over 10,000 retirees till March , and a little more than 200 undergraduate and graduate teachers have been offered jobs recently.

The chief minister himself has publicly acknowledged the matter: “There has been a big gap between teachers and students… In many schools, there have been no headmasters,” he told in an event. These shortages are most stark in rural areas, in a district like Dhalai, for instance. In Gomati, the very district where the CM spoke of the gap, classrooms strain under empty desks. A viral video which emerged from the district showed students in a field reciting lessons from a sound box, reportedly because there was a shortage of teachers.

Many schools have no subject teachers. In some schools with a large number of students, there is only one teacher for a subject. Many have cited situations where it became difficult for all students to attend school at once because there was no one to teach them. Students were divided into groups and given the opportunity to attend three days a week.

Many schools have only one teacher. Out of thousands of schools, 125 have been brought under a special scheme, Vidya Jyoti, and affiliated with CBSE. The required infrastructure and teachers, which the CBSE rules mandate, are lacking in many, reports say.

On the contrary, in these previously free government schools, students are now being charged Rs 1,000 annually under the name of infrastructure development. 

Shishu Bihar H.S. School. Photo: Official website.

Tripura's oldest government English-medium school, Shishu Bihar H.S. School, has been brought under this scheme. That school has had a large building for many years, and now, infrastructure fees are being collected from that school as well.

Nursery classes have been opened in these schools as per CBSE requirements, but in most schools, there is no teacher trained to teach students at such a level, this reporter was told. 

Many Vidya Jyoti schools have shifted from Bengali medium to English medium. From 2026, students will have to appear for board exams in English medium. Reports have said that the efforts to ensure that students in the lower classes have begun studies in English have not been adequate enough to ensure this by 2026.

In many Vidya Jyoti schools, board exam results were poor last year. This year, there was even a complaint that in one school in the south district, the SMC committee had decided not to hand over admit cards, even after CBSE had issued them, to some students, to avoid poor results. 

Student protests demanding teachers happen frequently in the state. To remove such blockades, outsiders also allegedly threaten students. Videos purporting to show such incidents from South and North Tripura have gone viral.

In the absence of teachers, coaching centres make brisk business. 

In 2022, the Tripura high court instructed the government to inspect all schools within a fixed timeframe and resolve the issues of teacher shortage, infrastructure problems, etc. The scenario has hardly changed. In connection to that PIL, it was revealed that in one school in Khowai district, computers were lying boxed as the school had no electricity connection. There were no toilet facilities. The condition of the teachers’ staff room was also dilapidated.

Just last month, students from a school in Dhalai district blocked the road demanding the repair of the school building. The walls were collapsing on them.

Dropouts at the secondary level stand at 17.85% and 10% at the higher secondary level, the education department’s website says. 

This kind of cow-focus isn’t unique to Tripura. At the national level, the BJP-run government launched Kamdhenu Gau Vigyan initiatives – even holding a national exam on cow science to 'infuse curiosity' about cows in young people. The Rashtriya Kamdhenu Aayog chairman had declared that 'cow is full of science,' and cow dung chips that ‘block phone radiation’ were proudly showcased, with little attention to its scientific validity. 

Whether this is government misdirection or misplaced priority is up for debate. What’s clear is that Tripura’s schools are scrambling and the government is looking elsewhere.

Dipankar Sen Gupta is an independent journalist at Agartala.

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