The controversies Catholic schools in Imphal routinely get into are unfortunate, but this is the price of success. The truth is, success is not merely admired, but more often than not envied as well, and this is exactly where the Catholic schools are today. The revolution in school education that Little Flower School and Don Bosco School launched in the 1960s is literally responsible for the cream of today`™s society, either directly or indirectly. Many of today`™s elite, many of them now on the verge of retirement, not surprisingly, not just in Manipur, but also neighbouring Nagaland and Mizoram are products of these two schools. The 1980s, saw a proliferation of more Catholic schools, Nirmalabas being one of the earliest, as the market worth of Catholic Mission brand was so much that just the original two schools became woefully short of capacity to absorb the lengthening beeline seeking admission to them. Helping the growth of reputation of Catholic schools was the incrementally dismal performances of government schools in that era. The latter during the course of the decades since the 1970s, lost all senses of mission that educators are called upon to possess, and invariably became the bazaar in which government authorities openly sold jobs for a price, leaving them burdened in the end with newer lot of unfit and uncommitted teachers, slowly but surely spelling their death knells. Today, government run schools are all but dead, with only their skeletons to show but absolutely no innards. If the past generations of leaders have a reason to commit hara-kiri, it is the shame of completely ruining government schools. It must however be acknowledged that the present initiative of starting some model government schools to match the performance of private schools is worth appreciation, but it is too early to say the government`™s commitment will sustain to keep these schools market worthy.
Much water has flowed down the many rivers of Manipur ever since the revolution ushered in by Catholic schools. Inspired by them, many enterprising private parties, almost all of them products of Little Flower School, Don Bosco and the later Catholic schools, have launched private schools, arguably many of them have since raised the bars of education standards several notches higher than where the Catholic schools fixed them. Although these later schools are competitors which the Catholic schools must not take lightly, at another level, they can still be proud that it was they who enabled this all round creativity in the school education sector today. Thanks to this revolution, if the results of entrance examinations to the top professional courses each year are any indications, at least in school education Manipur has lagged behind any other states. At the North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Sciences, NEIGRIHMS, Shillong, for instance, of the 18 seats left for open competition among candidates from all North Eastern states, almost on a routine basis, candidates from Manipur make almost a clean sweep of all these seats each year, leaving the other states to contend with only the seats allotted to them as their individual quotas. This is the blessing Catholic missionaries have brought to Manipur and the state ought to be grateful.
The state can only wish this revolution had also spread to the domain of higher education, as is the case in Meghalaya. Unfortunately in this sector there is nothing much to be proud of in Manipur. All promising students whose parents can afford the cost, therefore continue to rush out of the state after school. Our institutes of higher learning continue to fail the state miserably and shamefully. Here it is unlikely private initiatives can make inroads easily, for the salary structures modelled on Central government norms in these institutions have ensured the costs are prohibitive for entries by private enterprises. If a revolution happens in this sector, it will have to be from intrinsically born idealism amongst younger generation of educators who have already entered, or are set to enter the field. We can only hope and pray such a second coming is in the offing.
Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam