The performance of government and government aided schools in the 2011 HSLC exams
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: July 01 2011 -

Of the total number of candidates fielded by the government schools and the government aided schools, the pass percentage was 54.20% for government schools, and 50.11% for government aided schools. The total number of candidates who sat for the exams for government schools was 7365, and for government aided schools the corresponding figure was 2187.

The pass percentage figures are depressing and shameful. If one were to interpret the facts in a different way it means that of the total of 10,052 candidates half of them or thereabouts sat for the exams knowing well they might not clear their matriculation exams.

Or yet still, without trying to be dramatic, one out of every two candidates knew that he or she might not clear the exams. Who is to be blamed for this shameful state of affairs.

It is the derelict system which is at fault. By the system one means the administrative set up, the infrastructure and the teachers. Each component stands out as a sore thumb. For the vast majority of these involved people, their single minded purpose in life is to prevent or avoid transfers, take inexplicable leaves and to fanatically fight for higher wages.

In these endeavours they are quite willing to use their students as cannon fodder to press home their demands. And since they have no conscience there is no need to show a worried conscience over their acts.

If they had a conscience they would have felt petrified to come out in public unabashedly. The great American world heavyweight boxing champion of the yesteryears, Sugar Ray Robinson, who after being dethroned as world champion, faced a trauma so great that he started wearing a disguise which included a huge pair of dark glasses.

He returned to normalcy only after psychiatric treatment. But the people involved with the education system in Manipur are made of much sterner stuff. Their sense of responsibility and failure lies in the winds.

When we talk of the system we all understand that the teachers form the keystone. When they are recruited under norms which flout merit and capability it is almost certain we are inviting disaster.

A little digression will help further explain the point. Parents approach those in authority to help secure a government job for their daughters. This in itself is nothing unique, the practice is universal. But there is an aberration in Manipur's case.

If those in authority inquire what type of job the parents have in mind for their daughter the answer is an immediate give away.

"A small job like being a teacher would be perfect. After all frequent transfers will affect her family, and more important, she will have more time to devote to her family".

The result? The result is that if you ask a teacher, 'What kind of a tree is that?', the likeliest answer will be 'It is a wooden tree'.