Tripura to stop migration of students through setting up of more IIITs
Source: Hueiyen News Service

Imphal, April 06 2013 : Remaining at the helm of the power for the fourth consecutive term under the rule of CPI-M and giving special focus to development in education sector, the tiny northeastern State of Tripura is today making rapid stride in the field of education.

To put a brake on the trend of many students from Tripura going outside for study mainly in the field of information technology, the Government of Tripura is also set to open more Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) in the State.

Disclosing this to Hueiyen Lanpao during an exclusive interview, Bhanulal Shah, who is the Minister in-charge of Education, Culture, Food & Election, Government of Tripura, pointed out that with a literacy rate of 87.75 percent Tripura ranked 4th position in India in 2011 and we are aiming to make a major breakthrough of attaining cent percent literacy rate in the coming year.

"Today, even parents in remote areas of the State have started thinking about educating their children to make them doctors and engineers.

So, to give more impetus in the field of education, the Government of Tripura is planning to set up one polytechnic at every district headquarters and one IIIT in every sub-division to ensure that every student can have accessed to education", Bhanulal disclosed.

"As we believe in the ideology of communism, our main concern is equal development of all.

There are around 4500 schools in Tripura.

Out of these, only 65 to 70 of them are absolute private institutions recognize by CBSE and ICSE, around 35 to 40 are aided schools while the remaining 98 percent are Government schools", he added.

To a question on the Manipuri students in Tripura, Bhanulal informed Manipuri language is being taught upto Primary level by Manipuri teachers who come to Tripura on deputation.

Even though an official order for recruitment of Manipuri teachers had been issued on April 13, 1998, so far the recruitment process has not yet been conducted.

Nonetheless, efforts would be made for recruitment of teachers for teaching Manipuri language in higher classes.

When pointed out the need for awareness among the Maniupuri students in Tripura about the movement of Manipuri language and script in Manipur, the Minister maintained that it would require a political decision.

He also informed that even though the Manipuri community in Tripura comes under OBC category, there is no separate quota for Manipuris during recruitment.

In Tripura, there is already reservation system of 31% sets for ST and 17% for SC.

So, it would be difficult to allocate separate quota for OBCs in the recruitment.

If there has to be any separate quota for the OBC as well, then the Constitution needs to be amended in the Parliament.

Even without the reservation, at least 2 to 3 Manipuris are being selected in any recruitment which is purely based on merit and sincerity (70 percent) and level of poverty (30 percent).

The Minister went on to inform that the changes being witnessed in the education sector has also brought about a corresponding improvement in the health care sector.

The mortality rate among the children and pregnant mothers have come down significantly over the last few years.

"From the current term, we are also planning to set up one Health Sub-Centre at every Gram Panchayat", he disclosed.

During the interview, which was conducted during a recent trip to northeastern region to trace the migrated Manipuris organized jointly by Meetei National Front, All Manipur Recognised Private Schools Welfare Association and Pandam, a monthly journal in Meetei Mayek, Bhanulal stated with confidence that there is not a tint of corruption in Tripura and none of the government official misuses any of the fund provided under the state or centrally sponsored schemes.

For any developmental work, the Government takes the prior consent of the people.

"Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself respects Manik Sharkar as the best Chief Minister in India.

This was the precise reason why Tripura achieved the highest voter turnout in the country at 93 per cent in the last State Assembly election, a clear indication of pro-people governance and full public participation in the decision making process of the State", Bhanulal said. An interesting aspect of the interview conducted with Bhanulal at his official residence was that during the 3-hour-long meeting, from 7 am too 9 am, no visitor turned up which is a complete contrast to what we are witnessing in Manipur.

As part of the trip to Tripura, the team also met President of Tripura Board of Secondary Education (TBSE) Prof.Amitabh Deb Ray and talked about the education system in Tripura.

During the course of the discussion, it came to light that unlike in Manipur where we have separate Board and Council for upto class X and Class XI and XII respectively, in Tripura, a single regulating body (TBSE) looks after all aspects of education right from elementary stage to the higher secondary level (Class I-XII) .

Along with setting up Madrassa Board under TBSE, five examinations namely Madhyamik (class 10); Hr Secondary; Madrassa Madhyamik; Madrassa Fajil (Hr.

Sec) Arts and Madrassa Fajil Theology are conducted every year in Tripura, Amitabh Deb Ray explained.

With regard to text books, the TBSE President informed the syllabus for upto class VIII are prepared by TBSE in consultation with SCERT under the guidelines prescribed by the latter while TBSE alone prepared the syllabus for IX, X, XI and XII classes.

The prescribed textbooks are also provided free of cost to all the students in class I-VIII regardless of whether they are studying in private, aided and government schools.

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