Our Correspondent
Kisama | April 4
Nagaland Governor Dr. Ashwani Kumar today said that compared to other districts, Mon lags behind in development, agriculture, infrastructure, health and education.
Kisama | April 4
Nagaland Governor Dr. Ashwani Kumar today said that compared to other districts, Mon lags behind in development, agriculture, infrastructure, health and education.
“The schools have been sanctioned in the remote areas, but there are no good school buildings. Where there are school buildings there no good teachers. Where there are teachers there are no good students,” he said while gracing the silver jubilee celebration of Konyak Union Kohima cum Aoleang festival here.
As per statistics Mon district is the most backward in terms of literacy and education, he said, adding that it has the lowest literacy in Nagaland, both among rural and urban, and among the male and female population. As per the 2011 census, he said, the overall literacy rate in Mon is 56.60% (males: 60.38 % and female 52.39%).
In order to achieve long term results, he said “First is adopting the concept of Morung system of living and learning in our school education structure. We find that in the villages, the parents are neither well educated nor have the resources to send their children to full time school. At home these children, especially girls are required to do household work/help in cooking. All children have to help in agriculture operations and look after the cattle. As a result their studies get neglected. How can we expect these children to devote full time and energy to studies? How can we expect them to compete with other children from the urban areas and richer families? Asking them to do so appears unfair.”
He suggested that one alternative is to put boys and girls, within the age group of 10 years, from all poor sections of society, in hostels run on the lines of Morungs. He added that the state should provide all meals, books, clothes and teaching materials free of cost.
“We have the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas. We have famous public schools providing hostel education to children of rich people located in Shillong, Shimla and Darjeeling. We have Sainik Schools. We need to make Morung Schools for the children of poor parents from remote/rural areas of Nagaland,” he stated. He also stated that children below nine years need to be educated in the schools located near their villages.
With the twin objectives of improving the health and education of poor children, the Governor informed that nearly Rs. 34.83 crore was released for Nagaland to run the mid day meal scheme. In the 12th five year plan, an amount of Rs. 90, 155 crore has been kept for this scheme.
“It is for us and the state government to utilize our share and ensure that we provide properly cooked, Naga style, nutritious meals to our school going children. If we are unable to do so for any reason, then we will be denying our poor children the right to a good mid day meal,” he said. Further, the Governor urged the Konyak Union, Konyak youth, the NSF, ENPO and NGOs to take up implementation and monitoring of this scheme, “which is so vital for our children.”
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