Longing for Education Minister's attention
Source: Hueiyen News Service

Imphal, April 20 2013 : Lack of basic infrastructures including Science practical equipments and shortage of teachers have caused fear in the hearts of the students studying in Wangoo Government High School over the possibility of not getting the light of education even if they go to attend classes every day.

The pathetic condition of Wangoo Government High School was witnessed by the Hueiyen-Reach-Out Team during a visit to take stock of the prevailing education scenario in fringe areas of the State.

Altogether 621 students have been enrolled in the school which has classes from VI to X.Considering the number of students the school seems to be one of the most advantageous schools in the area.

However, the most saddening part is that the students were found being taught by just 8 government employed teachers.

To make up lack of adequate teaching staffs, the school authority has engaged 9 individuals as teachers.

The eight government employed teachers in the school included the headmaster, three Science Graduate Teachers, three Arts Graduate Teachers and an Upper Primary Teacher.

There are no government employed teachers for Hindi, English and Meetei Mayek.

As such, the school authority has employed private teachers to teach these subjects to the teachers.

The existing condition of Wangoo Government High School as seen from the main road

The private teachers engaged by the school authority are S Binoy, L Ranjit, S Sobash, S Birachandra, A Babu, S Sarat, A Shanti, A Bankim and A Romen.

These teachers are being paid an amount of Rs 1500-2000 on a monthly basis as salary.

Since the number of students in each class right from class VI to X exceeded 100, two classrooms have been made as one to accommodate the students.

However, many of the students were found seated on broken desk and benches.

A set of 10 computers and a laptop along with a generator have been provided to the school under RMSA.

However, the computers and laptop are lying useless as there is no power supply in the school and the generator provided under RMSA has not been used as the school authority does not have money to buy patrol.

Under such a condition, computer literacy for the students of the school is still a far cry in this advanced age of super computer.

As far as availability of text books for the students is concerned, it was found that many of the text books which are to be made available freely to students from class VI to VIII under SSA have not yet been supplied to the school.

The students have not yet received the Meetei Mayek text books for class VI, Maths and Social Science and Maths text books for class VII and English, Meetei Mayek and Maths text books for class VIII even though academic session has already started.

Moreover, other text books which were claimed to have been made available to students under SSA were also found not distributed to all the students.

Talking to Hueiyen Lanpao in connection with the difficulties being faced in imparting education to the students, A Kokil, Headmaster of Wangoo High School pointed out that in addition to lack of science practical equipments, students of his school have been deprived of the facilities of a library.

Science practical equipments have not been provided to the school since its upgradation to a High School in 1996 .

The Headmaster further informed that the concerned authorities have been approached a number of times in connection with shortage of teachers in the School.

However, no positive response has been ever received till today.

So the school authority has been compelled to hire nine private teachers for imparting education to the students.

The salaries of these hired private teachers are paid from the interest of the school funds loaned out to others and another Rs 8000 is contributed from his own salary, the Headmaster said, adding that the immediate intervention of Education Minister Moirangthem Okendro for the overall development of the school is urgency required or else the students might be deprived of their fundamental rights to free and compulsory education.