Little Flower School attains fifty
- Congratulations -

Amar Yumnam *

On Thursday last, the Little Flower School (LFS) kicked off its celebrations marking the completion of fifty years in the service of humanity. The various programmes presented by the students reminded me of the dictum of the whole being much larger than the sum of the parts; the different groups presented the programmes so wonderfully.

What I only wish is that the different schools of the State were so existent and function competitively today that the educational whole of the land were arguably the best in the country. Though there were schools before it, we can say that the history of modern schooling and move towards universalisation of it coincides with the history of LFS.

So it would be relevant and rewarding to examine the changes that have taken place in school education in the State during the last half a century, the period during which LFS has been in existence.

The Arousal: Enjoying the programmes and looking at the record of the school, I felt like having daughters all the time so that I would have at least a child in the school at any moment of time. This is the kind of feeling LFS arouses in one.

But what is much more important is whether one can feel the same for the various other schools in the State, particularly the schools now under the control and ownership of the State Government.

We must recall that most of the schools in the State were first started as agents and components of social change at the levels of villages or cluster of villages, and generally under the visionary leadership of local social workers. These were the schools which have educated and produced the present generation of people in different walks of life.

There were times when the quality of these schools was unquestionable and any happening in these schools were community events. Besides, there was such a wonderful competition among these schools for excellence, and this competition was absolutely palpable among the students as well. But things are no longer the same.

The Experience: I would like to start with my own personal experience in my own village. I had my school education in my own village. It was a wonderful experience marked by romanticism, which I still cherish, getting the first lessons in the local primary schools.

Oh, I still remember that as kids we all looked forward to attending the local high school, the Malom Megha High School. True to the history of evolution of modern education in Manipur, this high school was established in the locality by late visionary Yumnam Megha Singh to cater to the needs of social change in the cluster of villages surrounding Malom.

As I said, we did long for the time we would be attending this school. Once we attended the school, we all saw it as wonderful achievement and a definite advance towards perfection. We naturally felt proud, and I can say with hindsight that we did receive education.

The Question: Now the question is: can we still be sure of these local schools as we used to be? The response would be a capital NO. The biggest tragedy is that we no longer feel it educationally safe to send our children to the same schools where we ourselves spent our school days and did receive modern education.

We all know that change and evolution with the times is fundamental for any institution to survive and thrive. This process of continual change definitely involves, among others, money. But the local schools were indeed, though hard, evolving with the times and competing with each other until recently.

A visionary leader of the State thought it fit to remove the financial burdens stunting the progression of the schools, and hence at one stroke all of the schools were brought under the ownership of the state.

Now we are in a situation where all the schools have been finished because of the Government, and not otherwise. Free thinking is the spirit of any living educational institute. The nationalisation became a tool in the hands of un-learned and non-committed ministers for penalising free thinking school teachers, who ironically were the fountain of competition and learning in these very schools.

Unmindful transfers and postings became the order of the day. This completely washed the very fountain of school education: identification with the schools commitment to teaching of the teachers. Further, the schools became dumping places for uncouth people, who got into the system because the elected leaders wanted to return the favours during the election process. In the process, the original intention was killed lock, stock and barrel.

While one can befool an individual or a group of individuals, one can never do so to the society as a whole. The society has learned in due course that the once attractive schools are no longer schools in the real sense of the term, and hence places not worthy of sending children any more. Unfortunately, this transformation has taken place because of the government and not otherwise.

In Sum: In sum, what is happening in school education is that Institutes like LFS have moved with times, despite the normal ups and downs. Evolution has been a feature which have distinguished LFS, whereas the government of the land has throttled the various schools scattered all over the place.

As I said metaphorically in the beginning, school education would only be meaningful and socially productive only in an atmosphere where all compete to produce a whole much larger than the sum of the parts. The onus lies on the State Government now to facilitate and enable the schools under its control to evolve with the times and thereby recover their lost genius.

Otherwise history would rightly put the blame on the State Government for the continual sink of our society. Congrats LFS.

Check out photos on LFS Golden Jubilee celebration here.