Our Correspondent
Kohima | July 4
The Mayangnokcha Award Trust (MAT), which has successfully carried out school assessment and grading in Nagaland, has finally came out with some analysis and suggestions. On physical infrastructure particularly on size of campus, MAT recognized that generally, it is more convenient to have a larger campus in the plain areas than in the hills. It cited an instance that it may not be too much of an effort to have a full-sized football ground in plain areas (Dimapur or Chumukedima etc). However, to have a similar facility in hilly areas (Kohima, Mokokchung etc) may not be that easy.
“Therefore, upto the extent possible, we have factored in those variables and also focused on quality of campus infrastructure and resources rather than simply focusing on its size.”
In many institutions, it said, they found that a generally neglected area were the toilets and drinking water facilities and felt that “clean toilets, sufficient play space for students and drinking water facilities should form some of the minimum requirement of any educational institution.”
Most high schools and almost all higher secondary schools, were found to be struggling to finish the syllabus, it said adding that almost all teachers of higher secondary schools were of the opinion that they could hardly complete the syllabus on account of two factors - the number of available working days are too less particularly in Class XI due to short academic session, and the syllabus too vast.
“Many schools were resorting to extra classes just to complete the syllabus,” it said adding the visiting teams were informed that such a situation did not leave them with sufficient time to impart skilled based trainings, co-curricular activities etc.
Regarding syllabus and curriculum, in certain subjects there appeared to be difficulties in maintaining continuity and relevancy from lower to higher classes. Frequency in changes of prescribed text books, sometimes within just 2 years or so, but without any marked improvement/changes in quality, were found to be disturbing, it said adding that most of the text books and the number of books to be carried by children were found to be too voluminous, where even school bags had to be changed 2 to 3 times in year due to wear and tear caused by excessive load of books.
An important area that needs to be looked into by most private institutions is the very high turnover rate of teachers, it said adding some institutions have as high as 70- 75 % of their teaching faculty who were in the same school for just three years or less. “Since this can have a negative impact on teaching quality, the factors leading to such a high turnover needs to be identified and addressed,” the analysis said.
Of the state’s total annual budget and expenditure on education, less than 5% is spent on private schools. “But if HSLC and HSSLC examinations are any indicators, the area in which 95% of the government budget on education is spent, does not seem to come anywhere near close to justify such lopsided spending without positive contribution to the states’ education and human resource development,” it said and felt that this was one area which should be of common concern for all stakeholders- the government, the private management, teachers, parents, students and people as a whole, in order to ensure that Nagaland as a state should improve in all aspects of education.
It felt that a continued process of performance assessment should be able to provide a broad framework of parameters which can be objectively used to provide interventions.
It may be recalled that the school assessment and grading done by MAT with the support of the state government, is the first of its kind in the country. It covered three districts- Kohima, Dimapur and Mokokchung where 14 schools were graded.
Earlier, Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio, school education minister Nyeiwang Konyak and several government officials and agencies complimented MAT for initiating such novel venture to promote quality education in Nagaland.
Education minister stated that he had taken note of the proposal submitted by MAT for continuance of the assessment programme and assured that the department shall make all efforts to extend necessary support, to enable them to continue and also to expand such assessment programme to other districts as well.
