Failure to provide Mayek text books peeves DESAM
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, September 13 2017:
Democratic Students' Alliance of Manipur (DESAM) has expressed disappointment with the failure to provide necessary Meitei Mayek text books to the first year graduate students on time .
Speaking to media persons, assistant secretary general of DESAM, Shital Oinam said that DESAM, MEELAL and the State Government reached an agreement on 2006, to include Meitei Mayek textbooks for class I students .
Each year, the number of class was increased and eventually Meitei Mayek was included in most of the educational institutions in the State .
He pointed out that Meitei Mayek was supposed to be included at graduation level from the first semester, this year .
The academic session began from June but the text books are nowhere to be seen.
DESAM launched an investigation after the students put up a complaint and found that the publishers, who already have the copyright to the books, have failed to print the said text books, he added .
Expressing disappointment with the failure, Shital Oinam said that instead of printing and distributing the texts books in the market, they are being uploaded on the internet as PDFs .
He claimed that uploading the texts books on the internet will not solve the problem as there are many students who cannot afford computers to download and access the said PDFs .
Shital also conveyed that DESAM and MEELAL met with the Director of Language Planning and Implementation, Mahavir, and he has assured to provide the required Meitei Mayek textbooks by September 20 .
He appealed to the State Government and the authority concerned to take up necessary steps to promote and preserve Meitei Mayek and to make necessary arrangements to provide the texts books for all semesters on time .
DESAM also condemns the inaction of the Education Minister regarding the issue despite the protests by the students, he added.