LAMKA, August 31: A six member fact finding team of the Manipur Alliance for Child Right (MACR) headed by its convenor Bhupen Kumar toured Lamka town on August 30 with a media team and visited schools in the locality.
The team visited schools like the government run Rengkai High School and a private run St Paul Institute at New Lamka and interacted with school authorities and students on issues of Right to Education Act and its implementation in the schools.
At Rengkai High School which is one of the most sought after schools of the government in CCpur district, the team found that the level of RTE awareness was very low.
The Principal of the school said that they are providing uniforms to students under class VIII free of cost and were not charging tuition fees and admission fees, which was however contradicted by students who on being asked by the accompanying media team said their parents were charged by the school authority between Rs 350 to 600 as admission fees.
The teachers at the school said that they had a hard time to control students as the teacher student ratio of more than 1/70 which is way above the norm under the RTE act. The team also found out that the RTE provision of all schools to be disabled friendly is totally nil/zero as the needed infrastructure to accommodate differently abled students were found missing and even if the differently abled students were admitted, they did not have avenues for much mobility without facilities for them.
The convenor of MACR informed the beleaguered teachers who complained of their helplessness to control certain students that they can always approach and take the help of Child Welfare, CCpur whenever they need and in case of a crime there is a juvenile detention center.
The team then visited a private school at New Lamka, St Paul Institute where they had a report that corporal punishment was rampant more than other schools in the town, but the team was convinced by the authority of the school that the school is on the right track and further acknowledged that corporal punishment was practised until last year but now it’s a different story. The authority further informed the team that the school has a full time counsellor to monitor the students on a regular basis.
The team also went to the Social Welfare Dept of CCpur, to see the working of the Aganwadi Center but unfortunately the team had a hard time in getting the facts they needed as only one staff and some peons were present in the office and the DSWO,CDPO and the four supervisors and other staff were nowhere to be seen with most rooms being found locked.
The team confided to the media that such collective absence may not be an isolated case and asked what will be the result if someone needed important work done. Eventually, a supervisor who stays just 2 km away from the office premises on being called on the mobile came to meet the fact finding team but she was of not much help as the files to be obtained were with the absent officials.
Next the fact finding team met and complained to the Zonal Education Officer (ZEO) CCpur that the facility in the Govt run Rengkai High School were not adhering to the RTE provision at which, the ZEO said that he is helpless as he had no authority to execute the complaint.
The team told him to take action on the reported incident at Bunglon Govt School where proxy teachers are allegedly employed for which the ZEO promised action at the earliest.
All the heads of the dept / school in which the team visited were told of the consequences they are to face in case of failure to comply with the RTE Act.
The ZEO CCpur informed that he had already written to the National Commission for Protection of Child Right (NCPCR) some time back for the provision to have at least class 1 in all schools to have free education which should be upgraded by one class each year.