The Nagaland Communitisation of Public Institutions and Services Act 2002 passed by the Nagaland Legislative Assembly had brilliantly empowered the VEC on Administration of the Public Elementary School, its Academic Concerns and the Financial or Maintenance of School’s Accounts. There is a popular quote which says, “With great power comes great responsibility”; the capacity and question of the delivery of expected responsibilities by the VECs in the villages have to be examined sincerely and honestly. Definitely, there are some villages that would not be in a position to have such qualified and verified team to run the Public School with all the legal authorities vested upon them. This would certainly reverse the excellent policy of Communitisation of Public Institutions. There are standing examples yet unofficial records with regard to misappropriation of funds, granting substitute teacher(s), almost nil enrolment in the school, politicising of the selection or election of the VEC/CEC Chairman, wrong representatives or unproportionate representatives of the VEC members etc. committed by the VECs. There are some villages that cannot shoulder the responsibilities in managing the Temple of Learning despite orientations and instructions from the implementing agencies. In other words, some villages are not matured enough to effectively implement the concept of communitisation which in actual term required qualified individuals and prolific leaders to make it successful one and rather not cultivators nor a self-styled village school masters to run the formal educational institution at their own fashion. The concern department is silent in these matters and issues. Sometimes, the situation is like the compass of the ship is given to a group of persons who do not know how to operate and let the ship go astray in the mighty ocean or letting the villagers to experiment and drive the school bus packed with students and teachers on board irrespective of their mechanical knowledge and skill of driving. It is not to underrate the rustic wisdom nor challenge the implementing agencies at the higher level yet and true enough that in some villages, VECs are terrible! School buildings are good shelters for village cows, students are without study materials or out of school, village teachers compete to cultivate paddy with fellow villagers, interested only in funds or runs after school building constructions and other facilities etc. and does nothing or knows very little about the teaching learning process and students-teachers welfare which is the core importance of learning outcome. Such are the situations which directly or indirectly delay the students and teaching community for educational progress and social change in the village level. Communitisation of the public school is too costly affair to let the rural people ruin their own Temple of Learning at the expense of their own ignorance. A mechanism must be formulated to check this perplexity before this kind of environment hatch and raise another generation of idiots. The sanctity of the Temple of Learning is to be considered and by doing so RTE and New Pedagogy can be smoothly implemented.
Jetilo Apon, Tseminyu-Nagaland
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