'Make education free zone' protest staged
Source: Hueiyen News Service

Imphal, November 15 2008: EDUCATIONAL ATMOSPHERE in Manipur has been greatly disturbed by unwanted elements which resulted in total disruption of the academic process.

Education is the backbone of the society, living without education is like a dead man, said organizers of a sit-in protest demanding making a free zone to educations related matters on Saturday.

Hundreds of students, educationists and officials of the state education department, RIMS today carried out a sit-in protest at Keishampat Junction in Imphal calling for a free zone to educational institutes and it related sectors in the state.

Teachers, students and employees at sit-in-protest

The protest was organized as a part of its ongoing campaign by the Co-ordination Committee on Free Education Zone, a body of the various government employees, students and teachers bodies in the state for making free to all educational related matters.

It commenced from around 10 am and went on till 4 pm and various slogans calling immediate end to the disturbances given to the educational institutions including medical and other study centres and offices were displayed at the protest site.

By free zone to education matters, the organizers meant keeping the educational, medical, nursing institutions, offices, universities etc.

outside the purview of the extortion demands, disturbances etc.

by the armed groups and revolutionary outfits, stopping corruption practices and interferences by the MLA, ministers, bureaucrat officers to these sectors.

The campaigns have been launching in the state as giving disturbances and pressing this sector by the militants by way of attacking with guns and bombs for not meeting extortion demand by the armed militants and taking percentage from the constructions and supply at the government institutions are on the rise.

MLAs and ministers are also allegedly not let off in doing politics in the transfer and posting of teaching staffs in government institutions as observed by the talkers in the meeting organized during the sit-in protest.

A society without education could not participate in the present global development trend.

A man without education is like a dead man.

So, education is the backbone of the society, talkers in the meeting observed while expressing concern over the increasing disturbances from various angles in the education sectors in the state.

Due to various pressures to the schools, colleges and other educational institutions and extortion demands to the teachers, the academic atmosphere in the state has been greatly disturbed.

So, now the need to keep the education sector as an essential service has become a must, officials and teachers participating in the protest strongly suggested.

MLAs, ministers and bureaucrat officers should also help in making this sector a corruption free and should stop politicalization of education institutions imagining the future of the society, they said.