Soaring Wings

Teachers Day in Saiha, Mizoram.

By Mr Kunal*

The Teachers Day was celebrated in Saiha or rather say whole of Mizoram on 6th September as 5th was Sunday. We planned for it sometime back starting with a meeting by State Education Minister and then meetings are local level. Here the primary objective of the Teacher Day is obviously felicitation of teachers but also is collection of contributions towards Teachers Welfare Fund but it does not have any activity more than this. In Saiha in order to make it more charming and eventful we planned a painting competition for the students and divided the category in three groups. It was awesome to watch the kids using pencil, wax color, water colors, sketch pens.. The response was better than our expectation. We had it on 3rd. Total 198 students participated who we divided in three groups.

In fact I also fondly remembered my own childhood when I use to try my had with pencil but always have to write the name of object below my painting as it hardly use to resemble my imagination and objects in their true physical forms. My skills were always to fill the blanks with colors as originals were without any outcome….

The photos of cultural programmes will be made available soon.

There are few serious matters which concern education in Saiha District and the State which requires a proper deliberation at policy making level:-

1. The quality of education is not upto the mark in the district and most of the teachers I saw in Elementary Schools are underqualified. Although through SSA the emphasis is given on training but it does not seem to make any impact.
2. The school infrastructure is too bad. Schools look dirty and furnitures are too bad or simply non-existent. SSA is not able to improve the physical infrastructure to required level.
3. In remote areas teachers absenteeism is too high.
4. In schools too much of children energy is spent on learning languages. Upto Elementary Level a student learns 4 languages:- Mara, Mizo, English, Hindi; which leaves little time for the kids to focus on other equally important subjects which result in poor base formation and hence poor output at senior level.
5. People’s participation is missing in education sector.

There are lots of issues related to this sector but on this auspicious day I just want that let people should take note of it and bring reforms in Education Sector and make it outcome oriented rather than just a department to provide employment and civil works in the shape of school construction/extension.

*About the author: Mr. Kunal is the District Commissioner of Saiha District, Mizoram. He blogs at kunalmusing.blogspot.com