A Bird's Eye view at "Go To School" Mission

Sanjenbam Jugeshwor Singh *

Chief Minister launches 'Go to School' mission on January 17 2019 :: Pix - IT News

Amidst praise and criticism, the present Government of Manipur has taken up few gigantic Missions for the welfare of people like 'Go To Hills', 'Go To Villages', CMHT etc. After these two Missions with mixed results the next Mission 'Go To Schools' has been launched on 17th January 2019 at Yumnam Huidrom High school by the honorable Chief Minister.

Regardless of what will be the result of the Mission, it's a bold & great step taken by the Government to correct the yearlong backlog in education sector in Manipur. In fact, there should be a vision, Mission and Action; otherwise nothing can be done successfully.

So far we don't have any clear vision though we talk a lot about Mission. At the same time there is no clear cut action also. Unless these three key factors vision, mission& action are given equal emphasis, we will not achieve the objectives of the mission.

Therefore it's necessary to consider these three points very clearly i.e how far we have to go for a particular destination, where do we stand now, how to & how fast we have to go. There are three D's i.e. Discipline, Dedication & Determination. How and where these three D's are to be kept and inserted should be explained in the vision of the Mission.

Now it's better to stop or eliminate the word Education, because now is the time of human capital and human resource, because education is not the end of teaching-learning process rather it is thing to go forever.

We need to rethink and observe where to put & insert the three important components for everlasting human capitals i.e useful, relevant and lasting which we call Mission. The word model which is very often used by our CM is very important and unique. It has to come from grass-root level including model of teachers, model of students, model of schools or Institutions, so many models call role models put together we have to achieve our objectives of the mission.

So it is necessary to discuss it and need to emphasize to have a clear vision, eg.it was that in that year, it is this now and it should be like that in the time to come. So we need to emphasize what should be the useful quality of human being at that time which is the necessary relevant for tackling the contemporary issues . Therefore a clear cut vision should be kept how to build up the assets of our nation.

According to this , the three D's i.e Discipline, Dedication & Determination needs to address properly in the mission. Toaddress this, a team or a group is required,it may be among the teachers, may be the management or may be the government. Without this it will be useless. After achieving all these, there should be actions. Actions should be: what are the programs, how to construct the school building, how to develop ground, how to keep teachers and what about the transport etc.

Above all, in all the countries of the world, Education should not be isolated . Education is social output and institutional outputs. Therefore to form it we should clearly see food, health and education. It's highly necessary to go these three together. Food is very important from nutritional point of view and health. Without health, what is the meaning of education? An integrated program of food, health and education should be formulated.

As of now, this integrated program is not seen in our state. As we see, these three important factors i.e. food, health& education are going in different directions of their own. But it should be brought to a concurrent point.

This concurrent point will be the origin to build up the human capitals, which will produce what is call role model. The inclusion of excesses to already exist should be a part of a role model. So a good team is needed how to go about this. However there is failure in institutional parenting in any initiatives of government.

In fact all the issues in Manipur are due to the failure of this institutional parenting. Government is an institute, any department is an institute, and family is also an institute. But the most important part is the government. One time intervention will never do anything, it has to go all along. There is a British saying that "Education never ends, Educationist never retired". Therefore to make a model we need to include all these components.

To use the word model, it's necessary to do something useful; otherwise there is no meaning of model. It is mentioned in the "Go To School Mission" that all the local MLAs will be the vice-chairman of school management committee. So far no school management committee in Manipur functioned properly(known by everyone).

If the school management committee functions properly, we will have a good result or out puts in this regards. Therefore a proper guideline to evaluate or monitor the functions of school management committee is highly necessary. But, as of now who is looking after the functions of the school management committee is still a miracle.

Head Master will do in his own way, secretary will do as he wishes and sometimes there is no guardians representatives also. Somehow there is always a hot-spot. The concept is good but how to go is the question. At the same time, it's really fearful to see the role of private sectors players in school education. They do everything as they wish like a lawless market.

If we don't know public laws, private sector will never develop rather it will create problems. So it's high time to implement a powerful public law to the school management committee for their proper functioning as they are the custodians of school education. That's why people started asking what happened to the private school regulation Bill passed in Manipur State Assembly?