Students paying the price for no fault of theirs
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: February 21, 2025 -

WHILE over 37,000 students are appearing in the HSLC-2025 examination conducted by the Board of Secondary Education, Manipur (BoSEM), it is disheartening to learn that 31 potential candidates from a school in P Sawombung Sairam village have been left high and dry for no fault of theirs but due to inexcusable lapses on the part of the school authorities.

Amid the prevailing tense situation, the annual matriculation examination got underway from Wednesday at 155 centres across the state, with female candidates marginally higher than their male peers.

Inspite of the apprehension that the unrest situation might affect preparation for the examination by thousands of students displaced from their original place of residency and forced to put up in relief centres, the Board officials maximised their efforts to ensure that no eligible students missed the crucial examination.

However, the 31 students enrolled in P Namjoklung High School of Sawombung Sairam village but barred from appearing in the said examination on account of the school authorities' failure to submit relevant documents would be feeling frustrated, wretched and demoralised as it is obvious that they would have been toiling hard for the last many months with the high hopes of pursuing higher education.

Regardless of the clarification issued by the School secretary-cum-principal in-charge Andrew Palmei on Tuesday that he missed the deadline to complete the formalities owing to health condition of one of his family members, stalling the education of 16 male and 15 female students is a serious offence and an affront to the constitutional provision for mandatory education of the youth population.

Among other government schemes and policies aimed at promoting quality education, the Kothari Commission had laid the foundation for uniformity in school education and emphasised the need for educational reforms, recommended free and compulsory education up to the age of 14, whereas launch of the SSA aims to universalise primary education and eliminate gender and social inequalities while the RTE Act made education free and compulsory for children aged 6 to 14, ensuring education for all children.

As all these policies and recommendations centred on better reformation of the education system, ensuring access to quality education for all, improving equity to address regional disparities, advocating uniform curriculum across the country and emphasising on vocational education for practical skill development to plug the huge gap between educated youth and lack of employment opportunities, the secretary's clarification citing personal problem, is akin to making the students the proverbial sacrificial lamb.

Thus, the school secretary, or whoever is responsible for ruining the career of the students, must be made to repent for such an unheard-of blunder.

As outright cancellation of the school's registration would be detrimental to interest and career of the students, who are already in distress, government authorities ought to explore all available means to safeguard the students' interest but ensure that the guilty ones pay the price so as to ring out the message that establishment of educational institutions should not be for commercial purpose, as is the case for many private schools in the state, but to guide and shape the students to become responsible citizens of the future.