News
The case of the missing textbooks
Nagaland government schools do not have textbooks for students till class V and higher while the year is racing ahead towards its first quarterly examination.
Last year a scathing report in The Times Of India in August from Varanasi revealed that none of the students upto class III had school text books. A complete month of the academic year had gone by without anything being taught while the students merrily while away the time playing.
Fortunately, the TOI coverage caught on and galvanized the society to express their dismay over the negligence by the Authorities. Soon, the unrest and the plight of students & schools in Varanasi reverberated across India, and the textbooks were made available to a commendable extent.
Cut to April 16, 2016 and a similar story is being played out in Nagaland where most of the students of class I,II, III, IV, V and even some higher grades in government schools attend their class without textbooks. Teachers also attend schools but do not impart any education for want of textbooks. Many parents have begun to question whether they should stop sending their wards children to school all together!
This writer feels that the condition in the land of the brave Nagas should get more significance and wider coverage compared to the Varanasi fiasco. Because, here in Nagaland, it’s not only the reporters and journalists who are shining the spotlight on the apathy of the authorities, but also genuine students and teachers, themselves taking the onus of reporting from their own deprived institutions about the apathy shown by the State Government.
The RTE Forum’s National Stocktaking Draft Report, 2015 clearly notes “textbooks are the basic tool of learning for students, without which no quality education can be provided”. However, by now it has become amply clear for the disenchanted parents, guardians and teachers that quality education is just a distant dream till these “basic tool of learning” remain out of reach. And most unfortunately, students are yet to receive textbooks even as the academic year is racing towards the 1st Quarterly examination!
The Right to Education (RTE) Act 2009 also states that, every child in a primary school should have text books available on time i.e. at the beginning of the academic year. But the reality in Nagaland is far from it. And sadly, it the students who bear the brunt of the irresponsibility of authorities who are ironically in charge of their careers.