It is common to see students holding placards with “keep education/schools a free zone” when there are violence related cases in the state. It would bode well to examine what a ‘free zone’ means in the first place. If one is to look at whether schools in the state are kept free from playing to the whims of either the Government or non-Government bodies, then the answer is a big no. To begin with, transfers of school authorities and teachers take place not because of a systematic practice but mostly as a fall out over department heads, area MLAs, the coterie of contractors and their ilk. Club this with the lack of infrastructure in Government schools, the tendency of teachers to play truant and what we get is a heavy cocktail that spells ‘failure’. Private schools on the other hand employ teachers at lesser salaries and other employment benefits and not only end up turn out better success rates in terms of performance in examinations but also students who are more confident and competitive. Starting out only with a focus on exam performance, private schools end up creating a demand for student admissions and in the process gets to decide how much fees and other charges they will put up before an ever growing demand. In the process, they get the capital needed for putting in that extra bit to their institutions that are not available in Government schools: music classes, adventure courses, exposure trips etc.
To come back to the question of just what constitutes a ‘free zone’ in educational institutions: it goes without saying that schools and colleges and even the University in Manipur is largely impacted by the very nature of the unpredictable forces of social and political winds in the state. Bandhs, strikes and curfews have time and again impacted academic schedules and one has only to rewind back to 2009-2010 when educational institutions were shut down for over four months. If Education was left free from social and political turmoil in the state, we would perhaps have gotten around to seeing a different face altogether. The major rot in the Education system comes from not looking at merit and qualification at recruitment and then ensuring the latest pay packages notwithstanding performances. Teachers and other officials stay comfortable knowing that their pay is guaranteed no matter what their input.
The introduction of various schemes under Central Government funding including programs and projects like the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) have come with opportunities to plug in the gaps of infrastructure in Government educational institutions but have unfortunately only ended in bringing in the contractor culture where the fund supply has been tapped in for the benefit of a few pockets. The failure of the State Government to ensure the implementation of the Right to Education Act (RTE) has also meant that private educational institutions in the state can well afford to dictate terms and conditions regarding school fee structures in total violation of the stipulations of the Act. No wonder then, that private organizations step in as parallel voices and are taking upon themselves the task of ‘supervising, monitoring’ and being authority. Just how free are schools to decide for its students can be seen from the calls for dress codes that external agencies impose upon though they do come ‘dressed’ in the garb of ‘appeals’.
The fact that external agencies and organizations can decide what happens to educational institutions in case their diktats are not followed also speaks volumes of the failure of the Education Department in recognizing just what ails the system. It would bode well for the welfare of students to ensure that appropriate stakeholders are identified and partnerships forged to work on a road map or else the education sector may well become a crowded space with too many people calling the shots and very little happening in the real sphere.