The truth of the non availability of textbooks
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: June 16 2011 -
The Principal Secretary of school education admitted that the authority's inability to print textbooks led to the non availability of text books. Over the months various civil bodies had been asking if this was the reason behind the shortage/non-availability of text books.
Several newspapers, including this one, had brought up the same poser. Instead of being straightforward the authority had hedged on the issue, (with no intention to implicate the present Principal Secretary) and hoodwinked the students and their parents by setting improbable dates to release the text books in the market. The dates kept being deferred.
As this paper had discussed in an earlier editorial it is common knowledge that the award of work to publish school text books is not a routine affair wherein the work is awarded to the party considered the ablest.
There are a lot of extraneous factors, in Manipur that is, which act as powerful lobbies in deciding who gets the job. Sometimes these extraneous factors are visible sometimes not.
Ultimately the award of the work went to those who did not have the wherewithal to print the text books in time.
What is irksome is that the authority, knowing fully well of the ground reality chose to remain smug and make repeated false promises.
What if the present Principal Secretary, one assumes he played a significant part to come clear on the authority's lapses, had not owned up what many parents had all along been suspecting, that the text books were not being printed.
Three months of blatant lying had passed, how many more months would have the misinformation and disinformation continued?
What kind of conscience do they possess that enabled them to dissuade students and NGOs to give up agitations because text books are soon to be freely available.
What sort fiendish power made them lie so blatantly and so frequently.
Or is habitual lying second nature to them, so much so that it is common practice for them to lie even to their families ?
And now, if some of them face the music, what are they going to do?
Instead of owning up their culpability, are they going to form a JAC, stage sit-in-protests, call a bandh, call a cease work strike, ask for police protection, and demand for 'justice'?
Better late than never. The text books are now being printed in Guwahati.
We are not concerned of the loss of face of the perpetrators of professional deception, what we are concerned of is the student community, they must be relieved to learn that their long wait is over. They must also be gladdened to learn that from next year on text books will be printed in Guwahati.
We appeal to them, look forward, study hard and do your parents proud.
* Comments posted by users in this discussion thread and other parts of this site are opinions of the individuals posting them (whose user ID is displayed alongside) and not the views of e-pao.net. We strongly recommend that users exercise responsibility, sensitivity and caution over language while writing your opinions which will be seen and read by other users. Please read a complete Guideline on using comments on this website.