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KOHIMA — Nagaland is considering a significant overhaul of its education governance by establishing a dedicated administrative service for education.
This announcement was made by Dr. Kekhrielhoulie Yhome, advisor for School Education and SCERT, during a two-day training programme for district master trainers, organised by Samagra Shiksha Nagaland, in Kohima on Tuesday.
Yhome revealed that the state is exploring the creation of both a Nagaland Education Administrative Service and a Nagaland Education Service to address staffing challenges within the Education department.
He said that the School Education department, currently employing 22,333 personnel, saw 813 retirements as of December 31, 2023 and expressed concern over the lack of young employees, noting that only 3.88% of employees fall between the age of 21 and 30.
While pointing out that education is a state subject, he said managing government schools have been an ongoing challenge amid competition from private schools. However, the outreach of government schools especially in rural areas should be appreciated as much as the contributions of private sector in moulding and leadership in the state, he added.
Rationalising educational blocks
Recognising the need for reform, Yhome outlined several key initiatives including delimitation of educational administrative areas, adding that a team will be dispatched to reassess school locations, particularly those merged or abandoned over the past 30 years. He said that the department is also working with the Ministry of Education to rationalise the existing 46 Educational Block Resource Centres (EBRCs) to align with new district boundaries and administrative maps used by other departments such as the Social Welfare and Health and Family Welfare departments.
Furthermore, he said the department is planning to launch student health cards to improve health and nutrition monitoring in schools, especially in rural areas where malnutrition and incomplete immunisation are concerns.
The advisor also said that the department is working to address teacher absenteeism and political interference in postings to ensure equity for teachers. Additionally, salaries of employees with unauthorised absences will be deducted following approval from the Personnel and Administrative Reforms department he said.
Noting the underwhelming performance of government schools in HSLC exams, the advisor highlighted the comparatively better performance of Higher Secondary schools. He attributed the state's inability to adequately staff these schools to the current ban on creating new government positions.
However, he expressed optimism about converting existing posts to meet the demand, a move pending state government approval, while emphasising the need for consistent improvement in school performance across all levels.
Meanwhile, Yhome acknowledged the public's declining faith in the government education system, attributing it to the need for greater rationalisation, streamlining, and reforms. He also emphasised the importance of regaining public trust and addressing concerns such as teacher misconduct.
The training programme focused on various aspects of improving foundational education, including mapping ‘BEACON’ (Budding ECCE Academy for Children of Nagaland) schools, tracking learning progress, and preparing for the Nagaland Literacy and Numeracy Fest 2024, among others, said Temsunaro Aier, State Mission Director for Samagra Shiksha Nagaland, in her keynote address.
She also updated the increased participation of schools in the micro improvement projects, saying that there was an increase in project submission during 2022-23 from 1094 to 8695 projects during 2023-24.
Aier also underscored the importance of establishing strong linkage between sister departments at the state level and DIETs and EBRCs in the district and block level to provide optimum academic resource supports and handholding supports to the schools.
In this regard, she said that the training for the district master trainers from the DIETs, district and EBRCs has been organised to train the school heads and teachers in the block-level training scheduled on July 26 and the 27th, for about 5292 government teachers.