DIMAPUR, AUGust 9 (MExN): Giving its official position on the affiliation of private schools in the four Naga Hill districts of Manipur to the NBSE, the Nagaland Pradesh Congress Committee (NPCC), in a press communiqué issued by its President Hokheto Sumi was of the firm view that any major decision on this should not be taken hastily and that a careful study of the issue was required.
Expressing concern over the flaring up on this issue, the NPCC stated that affiliating the private schools in those areas to the NBSE may only lead to misunderstanding between the people of the two States.
Also stating that without any infrastructure or knowing the norms of the NBSE syllabus, any sudden imposition of such syllabus would be hasty step for the students of those places. The NPCC also reminded on the adverse affect it had on a student some few years back when a student hailing from that particular ‘place’ whose parent was an official employee in Nagaland and when she had topped the merit list of HSLC exam conducted by the NBSE, the student was denied the awards because she was not a Naga from Nagaland.
As such, the NPCC also asked the NBSE to come out openly with the norms and rules if the private schools from outside the State can get affiliation. The NPCC asked the NBSE to make its stand clear to the people whether it can declare schools in those places to have examination centres for the students to appear exams. “If they have got any practical difficulties in exercising power to schools outside the state then what is their limitation”, the NPCC queried. It was also of the view that there may be conflict of minds amongst the students who are studying in government schools and private schools with different State syllabus.
The NPCC has meanwhile also questioned the wisdom of the Consultative Committee for Peace members under the DAN government whether they had discussed in length the issues that may be involved in the affiliation matter and more so following its resolve to convey its decision to the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) to consider the request of the Naga people living in contiguous Naga inhabited areas of Manipur State, to get their school affiliated to the NBSE.
The NPCC was also of the view that since NBSE functioned directly under the State Government, what was the need of referring the matter to the MHRD. It further raised several other questions such as on whether a particular State Board can have the authority to exercise in other State’s school board and whether the State Government was also prepared to provide Post-Matric Scholarship to students and Grant-in-aids to schools from those places after affiliation. The NPCC also pointed out that one would have to look into the constitutional aspect of introducing the State’s regional languages in school syllabus of other States.
While respecting the desire and sentiments of the people of both States, the NPCC cautioned the Nagaland Government that affiliating the private schools from those places will add more problems to the State and the consequences will have to be borne by the DAN government.
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