Education after standard XII :: Destination beyond Manipur
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: April 29 2015 -

The class XII results will be declared soon.

And as usual for majority of the students it will be destination outside Manipur.

The reason why this is so should not be hard to fathom.

With no college worth its name here, parents and guardians will have to walk the extra mile just to ensure that their children receive the needed education and be awarded with degrees.

How far the degrees will go to ensure them meaningful employment in the future is open to debate, but this is a point which has been stressed numerous times here and the tragedy is no one seems to be listening.

Till Class XII, there are enough institutions here to teach the students, but go to the college level and it is practically barren everywhere.

This is a shame and this is the number one factor why thousands of students go outside Manipur every year to pursue their higher education.

For parents who are well off this may not be much of a problem but it surely is for majority of the parents for not all are well placed.

It is also important to keep in mind that it is only a few who will manage to make it to medical and engineering schools and majority of the students have to settle for other streams.

A situation where parents have to bear most of the expenses to meet the educational pursuit of their children.

No one here is talking about expensive courses or top of the world institutions but something as common as getting hold of a three year degree certificate or till the post graduation level.

This is the pathetic state of higher education here and adding to the sorry state is the presence of numerous voluntary organisations which are out there to throw a spanner to the academic pursuit of the young students.

Like it or not but it stands true that classes are more often than not disrupted by the numerous organisations, some of which have sprung up on behalf of the students.

The situation is better at the school level but it is true that the situation has been salvaged to a great degree by the entry of private players.

Majority of the who is who of Manipur are products of these institutions with Government schools just satisfied by churning out a number of literate but uneducated students year after year.

A pity it is that it is well nigh impossible for private players to enter the higher education sector.

The only option left is to send the young students outside Manipur to pursue their higher education-at a huge cost.

This is where the Government needs to turn its attention to the institutions at the college level.

College teachers are not paid peanuts and the natural question that follows is why the colleges here have consistently failed to produce students who can compete with their counterparts from other parts of the country.

Why is it that majority of the children and wards of college teachers prefer to go outside the State to pursue their higher education ?

This should say something significant.

If education at the college level does not improve then the Government may study the option of making it compulsory for the children of college teachers to study where their parents teach !

This may sound dictatorial and against the understanding of universal education, but when nothing of substance is taught to students of other parents, why should only those who cannot afford to go outside be constrained to get stuck in an environment of mediocrity ?