Siliguri, July 27: State-level leaders of the CPM-backed Students? Federation of India (SFI) today openly blamed the state government, the universities and the college authorities for the BEd/BPEd deadlock across the state.

?It was their responsibility to obtain the affiliation from National Council of Teachers? Education (NCTE). The government gave the no-objection certificates, the universities issued papers of affiliation and the managements went on admitting students over the years, without the slightest effort to obtain affiliation from this national monitoring body,? said Sudip Sengupta, the state president of the SFI. He was echoed by state assistant secretary of the organisation Subrata Dhar, who came here along with Sengupta to attend a political convention organised at Dinabandhu Mancha.

After the convention, Sengupta said his organisation wanted the NCTE to grant affiliation to all the 36 BEd and 11 BPEd colleges immediately with retrospective effect. ?It is necessary to amend the NCTE Act to affiliate these colleges. We want them to grant affiliation from the time it became mandatory to get the colleges affiliated. This is the only way out of the impasse,? he said.

The leaders also found some of the NCTE norms ?impractical?. ?We are against the present style of functioning of such national bodies. Instead of bypassing the state governments as they do now, they should involve them,? the leaders said.

Sengupta also said the SFI has already raised the demand to set up 30 more degree colleges in the state to cope with the increase in colleges. The list includes colleges at Dewanhat in Cooch Behar, Alipurduar block-2 in Jalpaiguri and Naxalbari and Second Mile area in Darjeeling.