Official lists out defects in Nagaland’s school education

Our Correspondent
Kohima, Jan. 15 (EMN): Most people in Nagaland have the misconception that government schools are availed mostly by economically backward sections, whose parents have low income. The public think that the infrastructure and education in private schools are much better than those in government schools and ‘everyone of us is responsible for it.’

Shanavas C, the principal director for the department of School Education, gave the statements during the introductory session of a two-day workshop programme for external evaluators on January 15 in the SIRD auditorium in Kohima.

Speaking to the education officials attending the workshop, he said, ‘We have to understand the various issues and what we should do.’

“Infrastructure is the most important in a school and if we are able to bring out teacher to the classroom and make sure that education is happening in all the schools throughout the states then that is the biggest step that will lead to improvement.”

The official highlighted some issues. ‘We wait for class 10 matriculation examination to measure their performance without analysing or measuring how they are performing in school.’

“We cannot expect good result from them only in the end.” He asked the officials to focus on elementary education instead of just “build a school and create a school and forget about it.”

“I am shocked to see that there are no education happenings in some schools and our department are not able to check the issues,” he admitted. But, he said, some community are doing a good job. “Our children are the future and if we want our state to change then we should provide proper education. If you are not aiming for the future then we cannot change the future,” he commented.

Shanavas said further that the commitment of the teachers and the community is another issue “as every village councils are not doing their job properly for they are not well equipped and not trained which we cannot blame them.”

‘Education is the most important thing we should be talking about,’ he added.

He spoke also about how there is an ‘increase’ in proxy teachers and the department is not able to check the matter. “We should check them.”

He suggested conducting monthly examinations to help teachers to know if the students are improving or not. 

“We should also ensure that the rice bags reach the schools,” he said. Let us keep our hearts and mind open for a better coordination and for a better future of our children, he added.

Timothy Thong, of the school education programme Samagra Shiksha, said the objective of the Shaala Siddhi is to review school performances to validate, complement and supplement the school self evaluation, and help the school identify its strength and areas where they can improve.

It also aims to ensure that school evaluation contributes to the improvement of learners’ outcome through improved school practices. He informed that an external evaluator will “evaluate the performance of the individual school in a holistic and continuous manner.”

Further, Liyalo Apon of Samagra Shiksha said Shaala Siddhi is a national programme on social standards and evaluation initiated by the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (Niepa), under the aegis of the Union ministry for Human Resource Development.

“There is evidence available across the countries that high performing schools have school evaluation or inspection practices in place,” he commented.  He asserted that the need for effective schools and improving school performance is increasingly felt in the Indian education system to provide quality education for all children.

‘School evaluation is the means and school improvement is the goal,” he said. The programme envisions reaching 1.5 million schools in the country through a comprehensive system of school evaluation.’

School Standards and Evaluation Framework has been developed as an instrument for evaluating school performance which will enable the school to evaluate its performance against well-defined criteria in focused and strategic manner, he said.

He informed that a web portal and mobile application on school standards and evaluation are in the process of development. A dedicated unit at the Neipa is leading the programme under the guidance of the National Technical Group and in strong collaboration with the states, he said.