Defeating all that education stands for : Uproar at IGNTU
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: April 8 2016 -
Set up in 2009 and still housed at the temporary campus at Adimjati Shiksha Ashram in Imphal and students of Indira Gandhi National Tribal University have every reason to be peeved.
There is as yet no indication that the permanent campus at Makhan in Senapati district will be opened anytime in the foreseeable future.
What is more, the students are yet to get a full time Director of the university and one wonders what the Government has been doing all these years.
Nearly 7 years since Parliament passed an Act to set up the regional centre of the said varsity in 2009 and one wonders what the Government has been doing all this while.
Or is it a case of not enough attention being paid to the needs of the students ?
It is not that the students have been quietly tolerating the seeming indifference of the Government, for remember a number of memoranda has been submitted in the past to highlight the grievances of the students.
Why isn’t there a sense of urgency on the apart of the Government ? Or can education wait ?
A branch of Indira Gandhi National Tribal University, Amarkantak, Madhya Pradesh, the regional centre was set up in Manipur in 2009 to cater to the needs of the tribal students but education is much more than about a name.
It is about putting in the needed infrastructure and making the students feel that they belong to the place.
This was not the first time that the students have come out in the open to lodge their protest and this will not be the last one either.
More than indicative that the students have not been taken into confidence and apprised about whatever problems the university may be facing.
This not how an educational institution should be run and managed. And this is where questions may be raised on whether the students themselves realise the sanctity of the place of learning.
Granted the students of the said university have every reason to be annoyed but was there any sense in burning the books after collecting them from the library ?
Granted, the books may be outdated and may not be of much use to the students pursuing higher education, but does this warrant that the books be burnt ?
Nothing can justify the act of the students in burning the books and in many ways this very act also exposed their attitude and approach to education.
How can students come under the impression that they can burn books ?
Time for the Indira Gandhi National Tribal University Students’ Union to seriously introspect and see whether the act of burning the books, after confiscating them from the library, fits into the understanding of lodging a protest.
The Government too need to come to the point that for too long they have been brushing aside the voice of the students and see how things can be set right.
For the moment, shed a tear for education for what the Government has been doing or not doing and what the students did on April 7 defeated everything that education stands for.
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