Cocking a snook at education : Warped sense of delivering
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: September 21, 2012 -

We don't need no education. The Government of Manipur is obviously hell bent on making this its fashion statement.

Two or more classes conducted in a single class room, no regular Director for Higher Education, a number of educational institutions having to cope without regular Principals, dilapidated buildings passing off as schools and colleges, class rooms turned into pan dukans, absurd teachers-students ratio and it should be clear why thousands of students are forced to migrate to other States to pursue higher studies.

Education in Manipur will surely go down as one of the biggest jokes played on the people.

No wonder then that these ills and shortcomings have not been unearthed under any initiatives taken up by the Government but by student organisations, the latest being the ultimatum served by the Democratic Students' Alliance of Manipur on the Government to pull up their socks.

No wonder then that the Education Department and the Board of Secondary Education, Manipur initially thought it wiser to issue the TET forms only in Imphal.

Juxtapose the failure of the Government to even appoint a regular Director for Higher Education with the manner in which the same dispensation walked the extra mile to beat back the reluctance of the Governor to appoint Parliamentary Secretaries and it should be clear to all where Education figures in the Government's scheme of things.

A fitting example of a Government which is more interested in sharing the spoils of power than getting down to the basics of delivering the goods to the people.

A fundamental right, education is this and much more. It is not only about equipping an individual for the job market but is also an essential process of making men and women citizens of the land.

Into its 9th month after the election to the 10th Assembly, it may be a little too early to sum up the performance of the Government whose life span is five years, but there has been nothing to suggest that it is walking up the right path.

It has been more a case of putting the cart before the horse and perhaps nothing illustrates this better than the abject failure to even acknowledge that without power supply computers and internet facilities do not work. This is the predicament that many schools face today.

However this is unlikely to stir the consciousness of the powers that be, given the fact that the Government has failed even in appointing a regular Director for Higher Education.

Development cannot be only about coming up with some half baked concrete structures such as the City Convention Centre and the ISBT, though these have been trumpeted as achievements of the Congress Government in its last two term in office.

It is education which should lie at the base of all that is understood as development.

That this simple logic has failed to register in the minds of the powers that be is clear from the joke that the education system has been reduced to all these years.