Gap between degree and employment: Nagaland needs a leap, says seminar

Our Correspondent
Kohima, May 11(EMN): A career guidance seminar for class-XII science students was organised by a group called My Admission Guidance at the Ura Academy in Kohima town on Thursday.
Speaking during the event, chief guest FP Solo, principal secretary of School Education & SCERT, said that less than 20% in Nagaland opt for science after passing class-X. The majority opts for arts unlike other states such as neighbouring Manipur where after matriculation they choose science while only a very few go for arts, he said. For that reason, Manipur has enormous technical manpower, he said.Stating the need for more doctors in Nagaland, he said that Imphal has two medical colleges, and have sufficient doctors who are able to teach at the two. In the context of Nagaland, he said “As the government is ready to set up a medical college, but we don’t have sufficient doctors who are able to teach at the medical college, unless we bring faculty from outside the state, we cannot run the medical college.”
“Our state also need to encourage more of our students to go for science and then build a better stronger foundation for science and mathematics education in our states” Solo maintained. He said that there were many unemployed engineers in the state because there are no sufficient opportunities and most of the students want to remain within the state while many of them won’t ‘think beyond.’
“Science graduates are likely to get more employment than arts graduates, there are fewer unemployment graduates among the science students than arts,” Solo said. During his time, there was no guidance to achieve what they desire but today he said the students have the chance with what they want to do, there is expert who can guide you and provide the best education for you.
Further encouraging the students to opt for the teaching profession, he said “teaching profession is a satisfying profession; you l earn the respect of the student, society, and mankind because you are the builders of their future.”
Abeni in her welcome speech said My Admission Guidance (a unit of Satwat edu service private limited) has hosted the career guidance seminar for the first time for Naga students. It has started with a motto of helping the students from Nagaland and other parts of the northeast, it came into focus for 5 years and helps the students as well as parents to get proper and rightful counselling before selecting any course or colleges.
She said the students from the northeast are not aware of the opportunities which are available for us as we lack in proper guidance, career-related seminars, and proper counsellor/career mentors to guide the students.
“The youth is the future of the nation and it is the responsibility of the organization to create a better human being along with creating a good professional,” Abeni said.
NA Harish gave career counselling to the students.

Arts teachers’ vacancy to be filled by mathematics teachers

In order to tackle the shortage of mathematic teachers in Nagaland, the government has decided to fill up the posted vacancy of arts graduate teacher that was lying vacant for four years to be replaced by the math teachers.
“Government has decided to convert arts graduate teachers post which has fallen vacant from May 2013, this post will be converted into math graduates teachers”, chief guest F.P Solo principal secretary, department of School Education & SCERT said this while speaking at the program ‘name your career’, a career guidance seminar at Ura Academy, Kohima.
He, however, stressed that if there were no sufficient qualified numbers of candidates, the department may not be able to recruit qualified teachers for maths. “If we are not able to recruit qualified teachers, there will be again many government high school with be producing nil results and also the quality of the education imparted in a government school and the enrollment in government may fall. This is a kind of vicious tackle and we must be put to an end”, Solo said
Stating the need for science and mathematics teacher, he mentioned that recently NPSE has declared recruitment test for the teachers, but in two streams for maths and science, there were no sufficient candidates.
Solo said that the post is ready to advertise again but underscore that they are not sure whether there will be sufficient candidates available or not.
He also lamented that over the past, many arts graduates were appointed against as math’s graduate’s teachers. But due to unavailability to qualified candidates, the government has again appointed graduates teachers for math’s who have taken up mathematic till up to class 12.
“Even now also recently due to (unavailability) of qualified candidates, we are appointing graduates teachers math’s, with candidates who have taken mathematic up to class 12 level. But this is a very congruous case.
In the process, we are appointing the wrong teachers and compromising with the quality of teachers as well imparting the education to our children”
He also underscored that in the government sector, many candidates who opt for teaching profession are not imparting education for children but for employment purpose. While encouraging the teachers, he said “If you opt to the teaching profession, you should commit yourself to that profession, you have to give your best and should be passionate,” and he rebuked that government teachers should change the mindset.