Abolition fate for Bengali Schools : Scant respect for the past
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: July 04 2015 -

Education and by extension educational institutions. Something like two sides of the same coin.

The link between the two is something which cannot be simply erased or put side.

Obviously this is a point which has conveniently been overlooked by the State Government in its decision to abolish Bengali High School and Bengali Primary School.

That Bengali High School is today just a plain shadow of its former self is irrefutable but does it make any sense to abolish the more 100 years old institution and replace it, however prestigious or good the new institution may be.

The State Government obviously thinks so if its decision to abolish the school is any indication.

However not all are ready to buy the Government’s line of thinking and hence the loud protest launched by students of the two schools as well as the voice of strong opposition raised by the All Manipur Students’ Union.

A more than ample example that while the Government may be lost when it comes to understanding education, there are student organisations which obviously seem to know more.

This is what is hard to understand. Why should the Government go in for the easy way out.

Abolishing a school because it has lost its earlier sheen is akin to defeating the very idea of education and educational institutions.

To numerous old timers, Bengali High School will be more than a school. To many of them, Bengali High School will be akin to an institution which honed and developed some of the best brains in the State.

Reviving and taking up efforts to restore the old glory of the school are steps which would have been advocated by anyone, but obviously the Government seems to think that abolition makes better sense.

Any other Government or State would have gone the extra mile to study how to infuse life into an institution which is more than a century old.

If Bengali High School is now unable to produce meritorious students and rank holders in the annual High School Leaving Certificate Examination and Higher Secondary School Leaving Certificate Examination, then it says something disturbing about where the Government has placed education in the overall scheme of things.

Anyone with a modicum of intelligence would have pointed out that it is not the school per se which has failed but the administrators.

What steps have been taken up to revive the school ? History, heritage of the past are what together make the allure of an education institution.

Why has this simple point blown over the head of the Government ?

Significant to note that on the day students of Bengali High School and Bengali Primary School raised their opposition against the decision of the Government, a rally was organised by the Democratic Students’ Alliance of Manipur to make education a free zone.

On the same day too came the news of Education Minister M Okendro talking about the Government mulling over a Bill to regulate private schools.

Perhaps indications that some thoughts are being given to education.

A positive sign, no doubt, but at the same time it also stands that all plans or Bills seem meaningless in the face of the Government deciding to abolish the Bengali High School and Bengali Primary School.