‘Nagaland needs to develop professionalism in education’

Our Correspondent
Kohima | November 11

Nagaland along with the rest of the country today observed National Education Day and took a pledge to uphold the dignity and sanctity of education as the mother of all professions and to strive to advance the cause of education in the state.

Observing the day in Kohima under the aegis of Nagaland Education Association (NEA), Prof Buno Liegise, Professor, Department of Education, Nagaland University, Kohima Campus, Meriema, said that the state of Nagaland need to develop professionalism in education, i.e competence and commitment

Prof Liegise said that the education sector in the state of Nagaland requires a work force that is competent and committed. She opined that efforts should be made to bring about improvement in education system and that, the  products of the state’s schools, colleges and university will be the finest human beings, boys and girls/men and women of integrity, competent and courageous, men and women of vision and action , which can compete with the best in the country and beyond.

“We need to be proficient in the work what we do. We need to be committed in the work that we are assigned to do,” she asserted.

She regretted that with the exception of a few, many educational institutions are not able to provide a well balanced kind of education. “Education is relying too heavily in favour of academic subjects, sidelining development of values, healthy emotions and attitudes, social skills,” she said.

Lamenting that the creating thinking potentials are not sufficiently tapped in the present system of education, she said “Education must recognize the multi dimension of human personality and work towards development of an integrated harmonious personality.”
 
School absenteeism becoming major issue

Dr Zavise Rume, president NEA said that modern school education in Nagaland started with the first school being established in 1874 at Molungyimsen under Mokokchung district by Dr EW Clark. In the past 100 years ago, the school education in Nagaland was progressing well at its own pace.

“The state government has been doing so well on education sector. However, despite of this success, there are many loopholes and challenges. Today, many teachers do not want to teach in the school. Many students do not want to come to school. School absenteeism is becoming a major issue in Nagaland today,” he said. 

Of late, he said, local teachers started an illegal practice of engaging proxy teachers in their place, which degrades the status of teaching profession. “The real person, who received training on how to teach well, does not actually in the school,” he said adding that this illegal practice is practiced within the full knowledge of the local village/urban education committee.

The state government is also wasting huge resources; he said adding “the children in many localities started to desert the government school. Unless this illegal menace is wiped out, our system of education will be ruined. If we are really sincere, we can easily put this illegal practice to an end. We need a strong state law to deal with menace,” Dr Rume said.

Dr Rume continued that the state government must come out with a strong and a clear-cut state policy on education.
 
‘We need to have introspection, retrospection’

Additional Director for School Education Razouseyi Vese said that the state possesses high literacy rate, “but very often we hear corruption, biasness,” and moral values are eroding day after day.

He said that education is supposed to make a people honest and civilized “but as of now when we look into our state, there is corruption, there is nepotism, there is egoism, there is tribalism, there is self-centeredness.” 

“Is this what our education is leading to?” He posed, stressing the need to ponder over such point where the state is heading.