MOKOKCHUNG, MARCH 31 (MExN): The Mokokchung Town Lanur Telongjem (MTLT) has criticized the Nagaland State School Education Department for deficiencies in the distribution of textbooks and uniform to students, and release of grants to schools.
A press note from the MTLT informed that several government school students in Mokokchung are attending classes without adequate textbooks. “There are hundreds of students from different family backgrounds studying in the different government schools. As such, the students attending their classes without adequate textbooks are teetering on the brink as the first terminal examination is barely a month away,” it stated. The MTLT questioned how the students would fare in their examination “given this dire inadequacy.”
It further informed that schools have resorted to the “desperate measures” of photocopying the previous year’s textbooks in order to make up for this inadequacy. It however asked the School Education Department as to “how far such temporal arrangements will sustain.”
It asked “what has happened to the textbooks keeping in mind that some classes have received their textbooks whereas some have not.” “Are the textbooks under the SSA scheme meant only for some classes?”
The MTLT also lamented that the free uniform distribution scheme “ironically has no uniformity.” It informed that “there are many families finding it hard to afford the stitching cost, though the uniform cloth came for free. Hence, it’s a burden rather than a privilege to wear the uniforms.”
It then expressed concern that schools in the district have not been receiving their ‘school maintenance and repairing’ and ‘school grant.’ It demanded that the due grants be released in a timely manner for the smooth functioning of the schools.
Meanwhile, the MTLT welcomed the Nagaland State Governor’s move to order a probe into the Education Department, and reiterated the ACAUT’s demand for CBI probe into the whole issue. The MTLT alleged that “there are uncountable discrepancies in the Education Department which need to be rectified at the earliest.”
