KANGPOKPI, November 4: A democratic and peaceful rally of various private school students within Sadar Hills was organized here today to press forward the demand for revocation of a State cabinet resolution on language issue.
The rally was organized by Sadar Hills Private Schools’ Association (SHIPS) as per the executive meeting resolution of Hill District’s Recognized Private Schools Association (HIDIPSAM) to lodge their discontentment over the alleged insensitivity of BOSEM towards the grievances of the Hill district recognized private schools and draw the attention of Chief Minister to immediately addresses the various grievances of hill recognized private schools in the State.
Students from various private schools within Sadar Hills congregated this morning at around 10:30 am at Brig. Thomas Ground, Kangpokpi for the democratic and peaceful rally.
The rally began at around 11 am from Brig. Thomas Ground and proceeded towards ZEO office via Autonomous District Council, Sadar Hills and further advance towards ADC, Complex and submitted a memorandum to SDC (HQ) to be forwarded to Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh and later culminated at Brig. Thomas Ground.
The rallyists holds placards which reads, “BOSEM change your system”, “Don’t trample our rights”, “Retain Additional Language”, “Don’t impose language”, “Give us free choice of subjects”, “We don’t want Meitei Mayek”, “Make education a free zone”, “Appoint regular Chairman of BOSEM”, “ Separate Board for the Hills”, “Respect tribal rights”, “Resign Education Minister”, etc.
SHIPS general secretary, NG Haokip said that scrapping of Additional English from the syllabus is a mistake on the part of the State government since it will contemplate on imposing of two or more languages to a student while adding that, “When it is very difficult to learn two languages learning many languages will be a burden on the students”.
Even when the Government cannot provide language teachers to Government schools, how can private schools manage or employ language teachers in all language subjects? asked NG. Haokip and added that there are more than 32 tribes in Manipur and only few of them have textbooks.
He also lamented that until the State government create a separate Hill Board exclusively for the hill districts or bifurcate BOSEM into Hill and Valley section the hill students will extremely suffers on various issues.
Meanwhile, SHIPS memorandum said that hill districts school have continuously highlighted the issue of Additional English and demanded the subject to remain status-quo like CBSE and other State Boards due to numerous setbacks and disadvantages of scrapping Additional English and rendering the students to take their mother tongue or Manipuri.
It is impossible for a private school or even a Government run school to appoint language/mother tongue(MIL) teachers for all subjects and also for other states languages since more than 13 different communities from all over the state coupled with students from neighbouring state like Meghalaya, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, etc comes to study in the private schools in the hill districts, the memorandum claimed.
It further said that making Meitei Mayek compulsory in the Board’s syllabus is viewed as an agenda to propagate language of a particular community in the name of education, which the Hill District Recognized Private Schools Association will never allow to happen.
While Meitei Mayek is open to all students, students of recognized tribal languages are restricted from taking language subjects of their choice said SHIPS memorandum and added that student of recognized tribal languages shall be given freedom to choose from any of the recognized languages including Additional English.
It also alleged that BOSEM permits transfer of students from hill to the valley schools while transfers of students from valley schools to hills schools are restricted.
Apart from other various misery hill districts recognized schools also continuously face numerous hardships in transacting official works in the BOSEM office even for a minor issue and the principals or heads of the schools have to spend in terms of thousands of rupees for travelling depending on the distance in a volatile situation in the state, it further alleged.
Therefore, we demand creation of a separate Hill Board exclusively for the hill districts or immediate bifurcation of the BOSEM into Hill and valley sections and immediate appointment of more tribal to make the institution proportionately represented and issues handled more efficiently, it added.