Imphal, September 08: Contending that the issue of favouring Nagaland Board prescribed text books in hill district schools of Manipur is part of the hidden agenda of the NSCN (IM), the Manipuri Students' Federation (MSF) opined that flaws in Board of Secondary Education Manipur Act is indirectly aiding some Naga organisations with vested interest.

reacting to the recent incidents of violence in some hill areas, the student body said some vested groups under the garb of protecting Nagas' unity and history are undermining interest of the student community and compromising their future career.

If one of the basis of preferring Nagaland Board text books is to protect history of the Nagas can the NGOs point out any particular content of Nagas' interest being safeguarded or projected in the Nagaland Board's text books, questioned the MSF.

Moreover, the pursuit of certain Naga NGOs for affiliation of hill district schools to Nagaland Board of Secondary Education and adopting the neighbouring State's text books is part of the NSCN (IM)'s hideous campaign to amend for failure in extracting concrete assurance from the Government of India on creation of Greater Nagalim, maintained the MSF in a release.

Observing that agenda of those NGOs involved in the text book issue are similarly to that pursued by the NSCN (IM), the student body asserted that adopting NBSE text books is akin to laying the foundation for realisation of Greater Nagalim aspiration which, however, is still a distant dream.

Calling upon the parents/guardians of the victimised students to leave no stone unturned to save the future of the children MSF suggested that reliance on BSEM text books is the only guarantee for a brighter future of these student community.

MSF also blamed Naga NGOs fuelling the text book imbroglio of neglecting interest of students of non-Nagas who form substantial percentage of students in the hill districts.

Regarding alleged loophole in the BSEM act, MSF cited an Act of Board of Secondary Education, Assam wherein all the schools in assam State are mandatory to teach the assam Board's text books unlike in the BSEM act which limits its legality to those educational institutes recognised by it.

MSF also accused non-Naga MLAs/Ministers of remaining silent to such a sensitive issue rather than chalking and framing out education-related policies/acts that could thwart designs of destructive forces.

On the otherhand, the student body also charged the IM group of NSCN of instigating select NGOs to create confusion in the Manipuri society and added that resources for expanding the sinister agenda are being collected from manipur vehicles plying along National Highways 39 and 53.It also described as unfortunate some of these Naga NGOs including certain student bodies of deviating from the principle of a student organisation and having more inclination towards destructive policy whose end result would only be a more chaotic society and cause chasm amongst various communities that had been living together for ages.

With the entire world racing towards advanced knowledge on information technology and students of Manipur steadily progressing ahead to compete with their counter-parts it is indeed very despairing to learn that vested interest groups are creating man-made barriers to choke aspiration of the students, mentioned the student body.

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