The apparently insoluble crisis in the state of Manipur on all fronts clearly indicates another round of uncertainty for the coming year. As winter and its peak demand, the year 2007 will go away in a few days for us to call back to our minds what a grim situation the people of Manipur have confronted in all their daily activities of life for survival.

With bandhs, roadblockades, unforeseen developments every time and violence of all forms, characterizing the social and political scene at every step since the beginning of the year, it would be too optimistic to believe that the state will head toward peace, political maturity and development-----a dream for social order in which human value would be realized, and marginalized section of the society also will be able to share the resources of the state with major communities.

With the present happenings as the reason, we are going to face the grimmer prospect of still a higher degree of mayhem in the rudderless state.

Even then, the most important concern of men at the helm of affairs of the state must be whether the state government’s commitment to fulfill major demands of various tribal students’ bodies will help improve situation in the hill schools to certain level remains to be seen—that is if the promise actually materializes.

More money for education does not automatically improve standards or quality unless the schools are properly staffed ---the well trained senior teachers argue today as they condemn the government’s apathy to school education in Manipur.

Teacher surplus in valley area schools are many times the national average, and nearly half of teachers in the inner city waste time and periods. Elementary and secondary schools in Manipur which consistently produced the worst are to be issued with an ultimatum to improve or be closed next year if the Govt. warns.

But how? When many a school in the hill districts will not be able to raise achievement to avert closure due to shortage of teachers and infrastructures, the department’s restyled venture (if it occurs at all) is to be viewed as crude and confusing for parents and students.

The fact that govt. schools have become the last resort for children of poorer income families is what the society is concerned with, even though a fraction of the poorest could send their wards to inner city elite schools of Imphal.

What is shocking is that the one time famous Adimjati High School which was available for the tribal students as the only govt. school for them at Imphal was abruptly shut down to amalgamate with the neighbouring Lilashing Khongnangkhong High School on charges of low enrolment of students.

But does it work? Muhammad Bin Tughlaq’s “Fresh Start” scheme to replace falling schools with shiny ones has now dropped out of sight. There is a steady stream of falling schools improving and coming out of special measures, as well as a steady stream of new failures.

Irresistibly, parents are impatient for results and grades, and rightly so, but closing a school is enormously disruptive to the unfortunate children involved and, in the case of academies, enormously expensive.

For the first time, the school education department can frame urgent policy for rational distribution of teachers according to the actual needs of schools since a school survives with the availability of subject teachers in consonance with class structures, and on area wise.

It doesn’t say that a BA (Hons.) should teach chemistry or mathematics in secondary schools. It is never a crime to expose that so many valley area elementary and secondary schools are flooded with teachers who have to be rationalized without any further loss of time to save government schools in Manipur, and for that matter the exercise should be carried out well before the commencement of the next academic session.

For a negligible strength of students, as many as 50 or more valley schools of different categories have more than 20 teachers each. How is it allowed like that? In this way, many teachers are unoccupied in the schools.

A headmaster of one elementary school recently expressed his annoyance saying that out of more than 20 teachers for about 40 students of his school, only 12 teachers were retained in his school for good after rationalization of teachers in 2005. Soon afterwards, all of them resurfaced in his school, only to create problems.

On the other hand, the hill schools are in a shambles due to acute shortage of teachers when the hill legislators are unaware of the irrational distributions of school teachers, and that teachers cannot be recruited for hill schools only is better understood.

For a drastic leap towards closing the achievement gap between best and worst performers, elementary and secondary schools in Manipur need to be improved almost faster than the present lethargic speed to defeat the charges that the state government spends hundreds of crores of rupees annually for government schools which are now rated at zero.

And very often, poor children who struggle in class benefit far more from being in a properly staffed school than half-backed schools. If they are provided with basic needs in the schools, they will do relatively well even with poorer teaching.

Some of the students who studied all through their careers in government schools have been successful by joining medical services, ICICI Banks at Mumbai or Calcutta etc. Therefore, some of the govt. schools are not without stories of success even with inadequate teaching facilities, for buildings are more to blame for school failures than teachers.

On the successful private institutions: The lack of space in school halls and other areas is the cause of the problems blighting today’s private English schools. School design affects curriculum and encourages gender stereotyping, bullying, antisocial behaviour and alienation.

There is strong evidence to suggest that rate of success in teaching less academic children is a key differentiating feature between good and less effective schools. To remedy the situation, sprawling comprehensive schools with more than a thousand pupils could be replaced with a series of smaller schools in an attempt to improve examination results.

We are keen to look, with an open mind, at all proposals to raise standards in schools. Smaller schools have been successful at many places in Manipur and they have a part to play here in the future, if credible proposals are forthcoming.

Finally, large schools will have to be broken down into a series of smaller schools serving 150 pupils each. No matter how it may ignite a debate around whether the structure of comprehensive schools should be transformed. In fact, we have many privately run big secondary and Hr.Secondary schools in Manipur and they are getting bigger.

In just over a decade, there has been a sharp rise in the number of secondary schools that serve more than 1000 pupils each. A big hazard. Concerns about the impact of such vast schools have led Imphal city to experiment with smaller models. It will be good if parents are buying smaller schools instead of super-size comprehensives.

The importance of personal relationships between pupils and teachers in boosting academic results and improving behaviour is now discovered. The objective is to defuse a string of incidents between students.

In smaller models, a teacher will be able to know each child personally, making it lighter to deal with incidents. In short, turning mega schools into a series of small schools would allow the head teacher to know every child’s name, help teachers build up relationships with pupils and keep closer contact with parents.

Today, government schools are in crisis when private English Schools are fast growing. Are govt. schools only for a laugh? If so, why should the state govt. lavishly spend for them which failed to produce the expected results on account of mismanagement?

The situation will be worsening by the coming academic session too. It is not difficult to find out who had created the mess in the education department, and the room for public criticism.

Since it is impracticable to bring all the hill children to Imphal for studies, the hill people should raise their voice to save government schools, stressing that educational value and quality should quickly rise.