Dr Asangba Tzüdir
As part of the rationalization exercise many GMS got upgraded to GHS but what followed this move was downgrading and merger depending on the status and performance of the schools. Now, a recent study by the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) has concluded that Nagaland government is running too many schools and “recommended that the state own only an affordable and manageable number of schools” and that non-performing government schools should be allowed to cease, specifically the ‘poor schools’ which are not able to sustain academic standard. This recommendation by SCERT raises the question of whether it is fair to students to shut down such ‘poor schools.’ But, on the face of it, there is a lot of unfair impact on the students related to shutting down of a school.
Government Schools in Nagaland have been made like a specimen study area and in the process it has suffered a lot on the academic front mostly. The introduction of SSA has no doubt brought infrastructural development as well as added teachers but as it is seen, the scheme has not been properly implemented to its merit and it has created a lot of issues and disturbances on the normal functioning of the schools. In such a scenario, the latest Central Program ‘Samahgra Shiksha’ formed through merger of SSA, RMSA and TE, and which is going to cover pre-school till higher secondary, is being introduced. Will it be another ‘experimentation’ on ‘trial and error’ basis leading to failure of implementation or will it bring about holistic development? Whatever the results be, the schools, teachers and students have gone through a lot of experimentation which has disturbed the school environment as well as the teaching-learning process.
In such a situation, it is sad that SCERT could only come up with recommendation to shut down non performing schools. The pursuit of quality education should not begin by shutting down schools but by applying measures that would both revive as well as impart quality education. Thus, filtering of schools is not the way out when it comes to quality education. Rather, the ideal would be to nurture what is existing and the revival process of such ‘poor schools’ should begin by addressing the foundational issues at primary level, level of teacher’s commitment and responsibility, linguistic issues, non-prioritization of studies by students, etc.
Well, the research study which was undertaken with the “primary objective to describe the operational meaning and concept of quality in general and quality of elementary education in particular” has also (besides closure) recommended school supervision and monitoring; implementation of smart classroom; and also identified the lack of having clear-cut goals for elementary education. And considering the number of Government Middle Schools where 231 schools were covered, it can be said that the coverage area is vast stretching over the 11 districts of Nagaland. But a disturbing fact of the survey is the ratio of schools in Urban and Rural areas covered by the study where 192 schools represented the urban areas and only 39 schools represented the rural areas. No doubt there are logistic problems and other constraints of time and resources to cover the rural areas but the schools in rural areas are the ones which are suffering the most and which also present different problems, issues and challenges as compared to the schools in urban areas. In this sense the survey suffers from lack of completeness. The fact that most of the teachers especially in rural areas do not send their kids to the schools where they teach answers a lot of questions. Beyond the general issues and problems related to schools, certain reconciliation moves among teachers, students, parents and VEC are necessary in order to erase trust deficit, for better co-operation and also to enhance the teaching-learning process.
On the whole, for inculcating quality education in government schools, a ‘new attitude’ is desired where the focus is directed towards engaging with the available ‘power’ and ‘resources’ at hand rather than dwelling on the lack that only aggravates the problems.
(Dr. Asangba Tzudir is a Freelance Research and Editing Consultant. He contributes a weekly guest editorial toThe Morung Express. Comments can be mailed to asangtz@gmail.com)
