The tremors of Nandigram have reached the portals of education, with “major policy decisions” being put on hold.

The state education department, Jadavpur University and Calcutta University have all decided to wait till the Nandigram heat dies down before deciding on crucial issues.

“The entire state has been affected by the unrest. We don’t think this is the right time to take any major policy decision,” said a senior education department official.

The department had “indefinitely” postponed a meeting scheduled for Monday to decide on a proposed shift in schools’ academic sessions. The government is contemplating replacing the May-April session with the pre-1988 January-December schedule.

“The CPM education sub-committee will meet on November 21, under party state secretary Biman Bose, to discuss whether a decision on changing the academic session can be taken now,” said an insider.

An urge to avoid fresh controversies has prompted Jadavpur University to defer till the month-end the punishment of those involved in campus violence on the night of April 5.

The authorities had earlier decided to table the report of the one-man commission that had probed the violence at the executive council meeting on Wednesday.

“We have no clue why the authorities will not place the report at Wednesday’s meeting,” said Swapan Ghosh, the general secretary of the CPM-backed Jadavpur University Karmachari Samsad. “We hope the report will be discussed at the council’s next meeting on November 21.”

The campus was on the boil for a fortnight in April, after a mob comprising students and outsiders allegedly ransacked the Samsad office and set it on fire.

Calcutta University, on its part, has kept in abeyance its plan to shift the responsibility to conduct BA, B.Sc and B.Com (general) exams to the affiliated colleges and grant autonomy to some of them. “The authorities do not want to be rocked by any controversy when there is uncertainty all around,” said an official.