Action against non-performing schools
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: August 07, 2014 -

From shut down of schools and colleges to counter the students' movement for implementation of Inner Line Permit System in the State to the clash of interest among the student community over the proposed implementation of the Central Educational Institution (Reservation in Admission) Amendment Act, 2012 from the current academic session in Manipur University...and to their respective lingering fallouts.

Well, one could definitely say that so much are happenings currently in the education sector of the State, and this may be either for the good or the worst, depending on which side of the fence one is standing or looking at from.

But a very significant development which we would not like the people to lose sight because of all these happenings in the education sector today was the recent order issued by the Secretary of Board of Secondary Education, Manipur (BSEM) for withdrawal of the recognition granted to 35 schools including Government, Aided as well as privately run ones, for their failure to send up candidates to appear in the High School Leaving Certificate Examination, the first public examination that every student needs to clear for higher education, continuously for the last three years nor more.

This was a laudable move against the non-performing schools that are increasingly becoming more than a burden to the collective effort of ushering in quality education in the State.

As a matter of fact, this was a move which should have come much earlier.

But as they say, better late than never, we hope that such strict action, which is of a rarity from the side of BSEM, would send out a strong message to other schools for putting in their acts together and help in improving the standard of formative education of the students in the State.

As far as we could remember, prior to this recent order of cancelling the recognition of 35 non-performing schools, BSEM had once come up with another stricture in May, 2008 directing that all schools which could not get 30 percent pass percentage in the HSLC examination conducted by it in the block of three years i.e. 2000-2001-2002 and 2001-2002-2003 should pay a fine of Rs 2000 for per block on or before the collection of marksheets of the HSLC examination 2008 failing which marksheets will not be issued.

However, what had become of this stricture was never known again. It is not for love of prying into the affairs of BSEM that this matter has been raked up today, but for the simply reason that contrarily to the imposition of fine for not getting 30 percent pass percentage, the number of schools that have gained the dubious distinction of recording 'nil' pass percentage in the High School Leaving Certificate Examination conducted by the Board has only become lengthen over the past years.

If the number of Government schools and Aided schools that drew black in the results of the HSLC examination were only 28 and 11 respectively in 2013, it has increased to 48 Govt schools and 13 Aided schools in 2014.

Perhaps, it is high time for BSEM to do something about this, and seriously.