Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, September 07, 2009:
The commitment of the villagers, village authority and church towards the cause of promoting quality education has today started showing its bearings on the performance of the Kasom Khullen Government High School which is being run under the model of public-private partnership.
During the course of an inspection tour of the schools under Khasom Khullen block organised jointly by Information Centre for Hills Area of Manipur (ICHAM) and Tangkhul Aze Katamnao Long from September 4 to 6, the accompanying media team noticed a mark improvement in the condition as well as in the functioning of the school.
Interacting with media-persons, head master of the school K Khangam recalled that after everyone started talking about the deplorable condition of the Government High School at the Kasom Khullen headquarters, a joint meeting of the village authority, villagers and church representatives was held.
As an outcome of the meeting, a management board was set up to look after the functioning of the school with the sole objective of imparting quality education to the students.
The school has adopted the new system under the public-private partnership model as the infrastructures, teachers and equipments provided by the Government were not to satisfaction of the people.
There are in all 307 students in the school which has classes from grade one to ten and 10 teachers have been posted to the school by the Government.
However, to ensure proper education of the students, the management board of the school which include villagers and church representatives as members have appointed 12 more teachers on contract basis even as World Vision, an NGOs, has taken up the responsibility of provide tuition classes to the students every morning.
No wonder, all the 12 students who have appeared in the class X Board examination last year passed in first division.
However, to ensure the quality of the education being imparted and produce more meritorious students, a sum of Rs 500 each is being levied from all the students as fee towards payment of salary to the 12 contract teachers.
The headmaster said that this marked improvement in the functioning of the school is the result of the efforts made by slain Kasom Khullen SDO Dr Thingnam Kishan.
When asked what is the immediate requirement of the school, the headmaster promoted replied it as science teacher.
He informed that the school needs mathematics and science teachers so much as that the 10 computer sets provided by Extreme Wave are lying idle as there are no science teachers to teach computer lesson to the students.
The ZEO concerned had also been requested for providing a generator.
But there has been no response, the headmaster lamented.
In connection with implementation of Mid-Day Meal Scheme, it is learnt that the school authority had not taken the allocated rice quota for the current academic session after the authority concerned insisted on allocating the rice quota on the basis of student enrolment of the previous academic session.
The inspection had also covered the schools in Tangkhul Khullen, Mawai, Khamlang and Somtal village.
However, many villages have to be left out due to inclement weather and deplorable condition of the existing road transport facility.
In most of the schools which have been inspected, it came to light that rice quota located under Mid-day Meal Scheme are not received in time and as the plates which are supposed to be provided free are being denied the students carried plates from home.
These primary level schools is under the administration of the District Council and the condition of the school buildings of most of them are deplorable.
In some schools, it was seen the students of different grades in one class room without any partisan.
At Tangkhul Khullen, the inspection team saw the students having their Mid-day meal.
However, there is only class room in the school which has grade upto class V as another class room is being used as kitchen for cooking purposes of the Mid-day Meal Scheme.