Longjang GHS: Bucking the trend for 4 consecutive years

Our Reporter
Dimapur, Aug. 1 (EMN): Education system in rural areas and government schools in Nagaland have been a topic of concern for many years based on the poor results during the Nagaland Board of School Education (NBSE) examinations.

In the recently declared HSLC 2021 results, there was a slight improvement with 25 government schools achieving 100% pass percentage.

Meanwhile, out of the 25 schools, Government High School Longjang in Mokokchung district has been achieving 100% pass percentage for the last four years. Moreover, the results this year was no different as eight students who had appeared the HSLC exams passed out with distinctions in Social Science. 

GHS Longjang Headmaster Tarepkaba Aier told Eastern Mirror that the initiative and indisputable commitment put in by the Yimden (village council), church, student bodies, community and parents towards ensuring quality education to the children improved the education system in the village.

“Like most of the state-run schools in the state, the GHS Longjang had its share of a poor education system with unenthusiastic teaching staff who were hardly in station. Although the school has never produced nil result, the performance was below 50%. However, since the involvement of the council who made sure that the teachers were in station and the school functioned like any other schools, the system has improved for good”, Aier shared.

Another initiative taken up by the school management with the involvement of the council, church and the student bodies was running of a hostel-like boarding system for the class 10 students. The school headmaster said that the teachers run the boarding system for the class 10 students year-long.

Since the boarding for the students is run with the contributions from the teachers, church, council and student bodies, the students go home for lunch and dinner during a certain time set by the management while snacks with tea are provided by the management daily.  

‘This is so because the boarding runs on a meagre budget and they cannot afford to provide meals. Also it cannot function as a full-fledged hostel as the parents cannot afford to pay while the management’s purpose was to provide a result oriented learning environment. So for a win-win situation, the students can go home for lunch and dinners, while the rest are taken care of by the school,’ he shared.

However, in 2020 owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, the boarding plan for the class 10 students could not be arranged but it was re-opened in November for the students, he said.

‘The initiative so far has benefited the students and the guardians but we would want the students to do better,’ he shared.  

The idea of running a result-oriented learning environment for the students has so far been fruitful for the community with the involvement and effort of the teachers, village council, churches, student bodies and the cooperation of the parents/guardians, he added.