Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman interacting with students at Dr Neilhouzhu Kire Government Higher Secondary School. (Photo Courtesy: Twitter)
Morung Express news
Kohima | August 23
The Union Minister for Finance & Corporate Affairs, Nirmala Sitharaman today spoke at length on the importance of investing in children and learning of science. She paid a visit and held an interaction with students at Dr Neilhouzhu Kire Government Higher Secondary School.
Sitharaman said, ‘Nagas who are equally good in music and fine arts and should not be inclined with the mentality that science is not good for me.’ She asserted, “There is great coordination between science and arts and all these subjects are interlinked which requires mutual learning.” She added that learning science should be made interesting and fun as it has an implication of every aspect of our life and plays a role in each one of them.
‘In the past we couldn't get basic facilities in elementary schools but from 1970s onwards, the attention was again given to schools to get better equipped and thus attempts were made,” she stated.
Sitharaman pointed out that today many of the digital learning materials that come to enhance our learning skills are not something which anybody has taught us but one has readily taken to it and benefitted from it. “These are very application based and it is fun to use it,” she said. These apps, she added, are accompanied by science which may not be very complicated science but simple science where creativity is required to put it into different ways.
She also expressed her happiness over many big corporations and businesses over the realisation to invest their money on children be it Corporate Social Responsibility funds or others especially for a state of Nagaland which has children who are looking for opportunities.
She said these initiatives will have long term impact.
“The child’s association with your company will always be edged in their minds and the kind of learning that they gain will have a long term consequence on what they can do other than they learn in schools,” the Union Minister said.
The government is willing to spend on bringing the infrastructure facilities in schools so that children have advantage even when they are in Class 7 standards onwards. She expressed hope that Nagaland will also follow this path and rope in NGOs and businesses to invest in the institutions. She recalled a sequence of 5 alphabets from OPQRS where she called students to Observe, Play, Question, Read and Self Confidence.
She later suggested the state government that after choosing winners of competitions that are organized for students, the government should initiate to bring the students to other states and cities like Delhi or Bangalore to meet students of same standards to exchange learning and knowledge and how science is perceived by students coming from different places.
Schools that presented their exhibits were Dr Neilhouzhu Kire GHSS; GHS Chandmari, Kohima; and GHS Jotsoma.
A DIPR report added that delivering welcome address, Principal Director School Education, Thavaseelan K, IAS said that to introduce the IBM STEM for Girls programme in more than 250 secondary and higher secondary school across the districts in the state the curriculum will supplement the state effort towards quality education.
He informed that the Department of School Education and IBM India Pvt Ltd. signed a three year MOU on January 4, 2022 to work with 279 secondary schools across the state of Nagaland over three years. The engagement will benefit more than 25,000 students to build STEM Mindset and computational thinking further inspiring them to take up education and careers in the STEM field.
The programme was chaired by Tiala Pongener, and short speeches were delivered by Nuneseno Chase, Director Youth Net, Joyeeta Das, Lead Global Education and Workforce Development, IBM and vote of thanks was delivered by Rose Chishi, Vice-Principal.
