Government Primary Schools in our state

By: Mangkholun Touthang
Being grown up in the hills and badly off, my parents had to send me to a government primary school in our village as it was cheap, with no school fees, and many other advantages. But they came to learn that although it saved them time and money with me going to the school, I was mentally undeveloped compared to other kids of my age going to private schools. The main reason is that although the government employs or assigns a bunch of well-qualified teachers to a particular school, many of them re-employ someone, often unqualified and inexperienced, to do their job. In this case, the government employee pays his/her substitute a half or quarter of his/her salary. When the substitute teacher, who has no experience in teaching teaches the students, it is guaranteed that the students would not have the amount of knowledge they are supposed to have since he’s unqualified for the job.
Given the above factor, my parents had no other option but to send me to a private school although they could barely afford it. Poor students like me have to go to private schools and pay admission fees, tuition fees, and other fees despite their poverty in an effort to gain knowledge and have a good learning career. But the issue here is that when those poor kids who go to private schools despite their poverty can’t pay their fees, or their parents can’t support them anymore, the schools would not allow them to appear exams or even expel them and ultimately prompting them to dropout of school. That is why school dropout rate in the state, particularly in the hills is high. This creates a lot of problems to the kids and also ruins their career. But the truth is that this kind of problems shouldn’t have happened had the concerned authorities take good care of the government primary schools and give them priority.
Most of the government schools, particularly the Primary ones are often neglected. When we look at their school buildings most of them are dilapidated and need proper maintenance, some are so rotten that they have become unfit for students to use them as their learning place. Th Radheshyam, while he was the Education Minister made a surprise visit to a certain primary school. There he found a bunch of goats occupying the school instead of students. Being furious and humiliated by it at the same time, he said he would suspend the teachers for not doing their duty. Worse, in some places schools are completely vacant, not even goats occupy the school. But despite the irregularities, the schools get funds and benefits from the government by making false claims about their schools and students. This is very unfortunate for the society in general and the students in particular.
It is to be noted that government schools are built in an aim to provide education mainly to the poorer sections of our society. They are mainly built for kids who can’t afford to buy school uniforms, books and pencils, bags and other stationery. And the government provides all of them. In additional, to make sure no student goes hungry, Midday Meal Scheme was created in 1995. But the problem here is that although a lot of benefits and assistance come from the government to ensure all kids get proper education, some school authorities do not deliver these benefits to the students decently and appropriately which is a very shameful and unreasonable thing to do. By doing this, they not only deliberately commit a crime but also ruin the students’ career and future. Government schools would be much better in building structure as well as in learning system if the funds are used properly and their teachers commited to their work or duty and not keeping their substitutes.
Therefore, the need to strengthen and enhance government primary schools has become crucial. To let these happen, the government officials who are in charge in these matters should inspect the schools almost every month. They should make sure the school gets all the benefits from the government. The concerned authority should also ensure that teachers attend regular classes and do their duties very well and fire them if they fail to do their duties at the same time. This would teach some teachers who take their job for granted a lesson. This way, the government could improve the condition of its Primary schools.
A lot of children, mainly the poor ones rely on government schools. For almost everything is free there. But it’s really heart-rending to know that these poor kids and their schools are often neglected. We should know that as long as these poor kids are denied proper education and are being neglected, there can be no genuine development in the state. Therefore, it’s time we join our hands, both the government and the public, and work for the betterment and prosperity of government schools, especially the Primary ones in our state.