The era of envious school education in Manipur which according to the finding of this writer stretched till 1975, or so, is now worthy of being recalled after the announcement of the results of Class XII examination conducted by the CHSSM.

There was a score of headmasters and teachers of distinction in their respective traits and subjects, typical of a scholar. All of whose command of the English language served as better means for control and supervision of the classes and school administration.

And some of them gave too much emphasis on grammar. As a result of which, a large number of their students didn’t do fairly well in other subjects.

In an orientation course held at T.G. Hr. Sec. School in 1983, the phonetician Ojah Kullajit of RDS High School dramatized the structural approach in English. He taught the sentence like “I wished, you’d cut down to the gate and stop the coach”. He said it belongs to preterite of modesty, and it can’t be treated as in the past time though the verbs are in the past tense and so on.

In the evaluation of answer books of HSLCE held in 1985, the phonetician who was the head examiner of the English Second Paper groaned at the examiners to be sure of what they had graded in their evaluation were correct. There was a passage for translation from English to Manipuri in the question paper.

It was all about a clumsy thief who was produced before a magistrate for stealing a pair of trousers. When the magistrate asked him where he had kept the trousers, the thief said, “I have got the stolen trousers on”. It meant he is still putting on the stolen trousers.

The evaluators who were herded in a room upstairs of the GP Women’s College, Imphal were all amazed at the upshot of the translation of the sentence.

In the next evaluation which took place in a room of the south block of the Johnstone Hr. Sec. School in 1986, he jeered at this writer for having over-written a roll number in the column provided for it in the markslip. He said, “You have used out the space”.

When another grammarian Ojah Chaoba of the S.K. Ideal H/S in the Imphal West was consulted about the appropriateness of the language, he retorted saying it is the kind of English that agrees with him, making no further comment. That was the minimal academic confrontation in the golden era.

The head examiner was so strict that he walked up and down in the room round the clock, trying to catch the wrong-doers red-handed in the evaluation. Even the slightest mistake that could have been ignored was not tolerated. Such a mistake was for an un-noticed dismissal which would have an adverse effect on the service record of the teacher involved in the discrepancy.

In a rare event, Ojah I.D. Joshi of the erstwhile Adimjati H/S, Imphal from Nainital who has lived in Manipur for more than half of a century once felt rewarded and overwhelmed with gladness when the former chief secretary of Goa State, late T. Kipgen told him his English draft was not less.

When the headmaster of the school was thus appreciated, his colleagues in the school were all jubilant. The headmaster was intolerant of narrow minds of teachers dead sure of themselves. Rudeness appeared to depart from his standards of decency. One of the few occasions when this writer was personally involved concerned of a minor fault of which the latter was not aware.

Greatly disciplined, headmaster Joshi disliked unpunctuality in others. He refused to be kept waiting, either in taking classes or attending a school social function.

Therefore, an educational institution at the secondary or higher secondary stage, whether Govt or private looks lively if the outlook of the head of it bears the hallmark of English. Head of Catholic mission schools were steadfast in their endeavour to spread Don Bosco type of education in Manipur as a part of worldwide mission. Their services were highly commendable.

The schools run by fathers gained steady progress and improvement year after year on the one hand when Govt schools began lacking accountability on the other in the late 1970s. Thus, the latter trailed far behind mission schools and some of the privately sponsored English schools in every HSLCE since 1973 onward, though a Govt high school topped the result list of the examination once in 1975.

What is now happening in Government high schools is disappointing when the importance of the language has become so great for scientific, medical and technological study. Also, interest in English writing in newspapers and journals has grown tremendously with the arrival of modern gadgets in Manipur, thus making possible a much larger readership than it could claim at any time earlier.

At times, our city writing has become jaded or merely cynical due to the influence of commercial companies with names of new labels, tags and stickers. Very often, most writers are fond of using so much jargon in a cliche-ridden style, making their points difficult to understand.

To look back at the scenario in the 1970s, there was a great hullabaloo in the Hindi heartland to feel the futility of learning English. It was said that there was not much hope for English language in India, and in particular, a candidate aspiring to join the administrative service of the country would very soon write in Hindi or any of the regional languages in all the papers.

Perhaps, the rumour was spread far and wide by religious fanatics. The euphoria has turned out to be untrue as English continues to be indispensable everywhere in the world, and it has become even more important than it was ever before in the country.

Quite enviously, the former headmasters were strenuous, and some of them were writers whose books were prescribed for text-books. More than this, their dedication to the spread of modern school education and devotion to teaching were really note-worthy.

Class room teachings were regularly checked and erratic teachers admonished from time to time so that they had close rapport with their colleagues in the schools during the period of their headmastership. Strikingly, they were immensely popular among the teachers as well as students.

Even the director of education of that time consulted them to frame syllabus and curriculum of schools, seeking their advice and opinions on it. They were influential, and they could resist any order of unjust transfer of teachers from their schools to others. Every teacher was safe from political interferences or departmental diktats so long as their presence was felt in such a school.

These were vivid memories of this writer who came into close contact with most of them in the orientation courses taught by them or on external examination duties or in teaching together in the school more than two decades ago.

After their retirement from services, few of them later periods could rise to the level of their guts and efficiency. It is lamentable.

Today, the ideals left by the retired headmasters are equal to stars: we may not succeed in touching them with our own hands. But, like the sea-faring man on the desert of waters, we choose them as our guides and, in following them we will reach our destination that will be achievement of quality education in the state at a certain point of time in the near future.

Can we predict that a day of reckoning will come?