Amalgamation of schools politically biased, claims school committee
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, February 29 2020:
The School Management Committee of Lairenjam Primary School has appealed to the State Government to refrain from amalgamating the school with Lairenjam Upper Primary School and instead to keep the school as it is.
Speaking to reporters at the school premises, convenor of the school committee, N Sangoijao, said the school was operating with six teachers before.
However, the situation became worse around June, 2017, as the number of teachers was cut short to only three.
Even though the School Management Committee wrote to Wangoi ZEO highlighting the problem, no positive measures have been taken up till date, he alleged.
As a remedy to the issue, two new teachers were hired for the school in 2018 and a monthly salary of Rs 3000 each, were given to them from a contribution of Rs 2000 each made by the present three teachers, he asserted.
Amidst the effort to keep the school operational, the Government's attempt to amalgamate Lairenjam Primary School and Lairenjam Upper Primary School is very unfortunate.
Altogether, 40 students are reading in Lairenjam Primary School, he informed while adding that the number of students increased from 25, in 2017, to 44 in 2019, despite the insufficient manpower.
Alleging that the amalgamation was intentional, he said that the amalgamation order was released in June last year and that the committee approached the ZEO concerned to enquire about the amalgamation and the official had informed that amalgamation is taken up according to the availability of students and the distance of two schools.
The convenor questioned as to why the Government had not considered to amalgamate other schools, which have less students than Lairenjam Primary School, and are even more closer to each other when it comes to distance.
Alleging that the decision of amalgamation was "politically biased", the convenor urged the State Government not to carry on with the process.
He further appealed the authorities concerned to come down to the school and see if the decision to amalgamate is reasonable or not.