Water engine to "winegine" SSA : Self Savings Account
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: July 04 2011 -

The report that some classrooms of a primary school have been turned into pan kiosks read like a story lifted straight from the propaganda material of the Opposition parties during election campaigning, but the sad part is the particular report had nothing to do with the propagandist world of electioneering or election slogans raised by political parties.

The story was scripted not from the fertile minds of a budding story teller but was a splendid yarn derived from the twisted, squeezed and mutilated scheme under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.

A noble scheme the SSA is, and it blends perfectly with the Right to Education Act passed by Parliament some time back but as it happens with almost everything here, the moment this scheme entered the boundary of Manipur it underwent a transformation, so drastic that from a scheme meant to ensure that free education is imparted to every children, it became a scheme to line the pockets of some fly by night operators, who have perfected their art under political patronage.

There is something naive and innocent in the way in which "water engine" becomes "winegine or wine engine" or the auto makers Chevrolet become "Chokolat" or "birthday" becomes to "bath day" once they set foot on the soil of Manipur, but there is nothing innocent or naive about the manner in which SSA is turned to Self Savings Accounts or remember the manner in which the Pillai Package for Tamenglong about a decade ago was turned into a Pillage Package.

The system has been wired in such a way that a short circuit is a given whenever Centrally sponsored schemes land in Manipur and the manner in which class rooms built under the noble objective of the SSA, which is to provide free education to all children, reflects nothing except the rot that has come to be synonymous with the Education Department.

For each and every child who leaves Manipur for further studies, multiplying the burden on the parents, lies the tale of classrooms being turned into pan shops, chicken coops, pig's sty or cattle shed and each child sent outside the State to study further means more earning avenues for people who can rent out a room or two in cities like Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore, Chandigarh etc.

So while the Government and its corrupt officialdom has gone the extra mile to ensure that the State is bled both ways, one at the time of pocketing the funds meant for education and other Centrally sponsored schemes and the other at the time when the young student is constrained to leave the State to study outside, thereby draining rich revenue from the State, it finds itself in a spot on how to drain the stagnant water from the overflowing nullahs.

There are many willing hands to drain the much needed revenue from the State but not enough expertise or application of mind when it comes to the need to drain off the excess water from places of human dwelling.

While the Government, aided by the officialdom and fly by night operators continue to wrack their brains on how to drain the funds pumped in by the Centre, large swathes of areas in places like Lamphel continue to wallow in flood water because no pumps are available to drain off the excess water !

On the walls of the pan shops which have been turned over from class rooms, are etched the story of the unholy nexus of the politicians, the babudom and the class of pseudo contractors.

It is the marriage of these three elements which have heralded the dawn of the system wherein everything is seen and interpreted along the process of awarding and getting contract works. So contract teachers should not come as a surprise to those who are familiar with the system here.

It may not be long before we have contractors also called contract contractors and this will be the fitting finale to the story line which has emerged from the marriage of the three mentioned elements.

In such a situation it is not surprising to see the joke that has been made of the process to recruit teachers under the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan. We have already reported the story of how a candidate found herself being named in the list of eligible candidates first announced by the Government.

This however met with a sort of an anti-climax when another name was found against the same roll number in the internet list. A classic case of two names having the same roll number.

Who is at fault here is an answer that only the Government can provide, but it says something profound. Transparency was the mantra of the Government when it came to the recruitment of the teachers under RMSA, but transparency ended at the internet where one found another name against the same roll number, and attempts to check the marks of the eligible candidates bore no fruits.

Another decision, which sounded fantastical and pompous, no doubt, was the announcement that the Government has decided to do away with the interview so as to erase any room for discrepancy or favouritism. Anyway the interview carries only 5 pc, was the reasoning put forth.

Academic record is going to be the criteria for the selection, said the 12 Wise Men, but has it taken into consideration some bare points such as the fact that Science students, more so students with Physics and Maths, are in a better position to show better academic records than say a Science student from the Zoology of Botany stream ?

Not to speak about students from the Arts stream ? Has any model being worked out to have different scales to measure the performance of the candidates or is it going to be another case of shooting in the dark ? The conduct of the Government does not inspire much hope.