Messing with Ramlal Paul HSS : Modern day Tughlaqs
- Sangai Express Editorial :: June 19, 2013 -

Quixotic and Tughlaqnesque.

This should about sum up the decision of the Government to turn Ramlal Paul Higher Secondary School to an all girls institution to accommodate the students who could not secure admission at TG Higher Secondary School.

Comes close to a case of uprooting all trees from a densely forested area to be planted on a barren hill top under the ‘Go Green’ slogan.

Manipur certainly seems to be overflowing with modern day Muhammad bin Tughlaqs, dictating the policies and programmes of the Government.

Making a farce of the understanding of accommodating deserving students in Government institutions. So true to the character or lack of it of the Government which is into its third consecutive term in power.

Definitely not a step, which educationists, academicians and all those who have an iota of understanding how the education sector should be run and managed would prescribe.

In M Okendro, Manipur has a young man helming the affairs of the Education portfolio and while his intentions are above board, the dividing line between intentions and the practicability of it all should not be missed.

This is all that more so when it concerns the fate and future of the young students.

“Boys pack up and look for some other schools, since your institution is now going to be an all girls school,” is the crude message that has been delivered to the students who are presently studying at Ramlal Paul Higher Secondary School.

If the matter was not so serious, it would surely have elicited guffaws from all the nooks and corners of the world of academia.

By all means, the Government should try its best to accommodate deserving students in its institutions, but literally ‘dispelling’ some students from an institution to make way for others reeks of sheer incompetency and the unwillingness to seriously sit down and address the issue.

Rewind a year back. On taking charge of the Education portfolio, M Okendro had more than made it clear that all students who come to seek admission at some of the better known Government institutions at the Plus 2 level, such as TG Higher Secondary School, CC Higher Secondary School, Johnstone Higher Seconday School would be accommodated.

A noble thought, giving a cutting edge definition of the Government being there to cater to the needs of the students.

Cut back to the present and it has become clear that in the interregnum of one year nothing substantial has been done to realise the grand idea of the Education Minister.

This fact is there for all to see in the grand idea of turning Ramlal Paul Higher Secondary School to an all girls’ institution to accommodate students who could not get admission in TG Higher Secondary School.

Nothing can get more farcical than this.

At the moment, there must be more than a hundred boys studying at Ramlal Paul Higher Secondary School from Class VI to Class XII.

How about these boys ? Have any thought been given to their future ?

It would also be a gross injustice to the rich legacy of the school, which for long was synonymous with not only academic excellence but also for the values and ethics imparted on the young students.

Either roll back the ludicrous decision at the soonest or else why not explore the idea of making Ramlal Paul Higher Secondary School a co-educational institution ?

The knee jerk response to the situation by the Government is also reflected in the manner in which the decision was adopted sans any debates or deliberations amongst the academics and the educationists.

Modern day Muhammad bin Tughlaqs would only reduce Manipur into a laughing stock of not only the country but the world as well.