Make local dialect essential : ATSUM
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, June 03 2016 : The act of omission and belittling the Constitutional mandate of making mother tongue the medium of instruction at Primary Schools has not only "destroyed" primary education but also the life career of those dedicated community teachers or EV teachers, said All Tribal Students' Union Manipur (ATSUM) on Friday.

A statement of the union issued by its information and publicity secretary Micah Kamei further stated that considering the "degenerated" socio-political milieu and the modus operandi of the Government of Manipur in education sector against the RTE Act and National Policy of Education, this press communiqu� is issued to sensitise the general public to prevent exploitation.

It's worth mentioning that SSA under RTE initiated a correct step by establishing community-based schools called EGS enabling the local community to appoint community teacher or education volunteer teacher from the locality of the school, who possess the calibre to impart formal education to children in the mother tongue under this scheme, the union said.

It said that rapid development was made in the interior school-less villages or habitations where only mother tongue is the medium of instruction and interaction and accordingly, 717 EGS schools were opened in the State and among them, 456 schools were upgraded to Primary Schools in the year 2011.However, the union said upgradation of the formal EGS schools into regular Primary Schools has brought tremendous harm for the Lower Primary Schools, particularly in the hill districts and remote valley areas in general because the community teachers or education volunteer teachers appointed by the local community were dropped mercilessly and replaced by State appointees who possess no knowledge of the mother tongue in a locality.

"As result of this, the newly upgraded schools have collapsed en-masse.

It's disappointing that those State appointees are being utilised somewhere at Upper Primary Schools of high schools," ATSUM said.

This serious act of omission and belittling the Constitutional mandate of making mother tongue as the medium of instruction for Primary Schools has not only destroyed primary education but also the life career of those dedicated community teachers or EV teachers, it said.

This cannot be accepted as it is neither expedient nor lawful, it said and adding that the damage done to the community teachers on the plea of being untrained is a manipulative interpretation as many primary teachers under the Education (S) and Autonomous District Councils (ADCs) are being given the opportunity to get oneself trained under DIET.

The student body further said that while analysing a holistic approach for considering a one-time measure of relaxing requisite benchmark qualification for recruitment of teachers under SSA and RMSA, it should be noted that mother tongue of one's locality or community should be made as an essential qualification in Lower Primary School to regional dialect.

It demanded that the abandoned 456 teachers of the upgraded schools be given space for absorption in view of the sacrifices rendered in nurturing children of remote areas.

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