From Bhadra Gogoi
Dimapur: The Development Forum (Education Sector) of Noklak district, a remote and the recently created youngest district of Nagaland, has embarked on a mission to provide quality education for all the students. Most of the villages in the district do not have network connectivity at a time when the education sector is switching over to online teaching and classes.
The forum held a meeting under the chairmanship of Noklak deputy commissioner Reny Wilfred on Tuesday and resolved to come up with an Education Vision Document 2030 for the district keeping in the evolving perspectives of the New Education Policy. The final draft document is expected to be ready by September end and will be made available for comments from public and experts from the field of education.
Wilfred, the first DC of the district, is taking the initiative in this direction.
At the meeting, the forum discussed on the “district vision document for quality education for all” to improve the quality of education in the district. The vision is to have cent percent pass percentage in Class 10 and 12 in the government schools and improve quality education at the village level with focus on preschool and preliminary education to set foundations.
It also discussed on improving preschool and primary education, integrating basic life skills at the school level, integrating Anganwadi, village health nutrition day, Sakhi One Stop Centre, Mahila Shakti Kendra, Nehru Yuva Kendra with the school education system to improve health, nutrition and hygiene among children and parents. It further deliberated about tackling proxy teacher issue to improve village level education while considering the humanitarian side of the issue.
Improving maths and science education at school level with adoption of technology and new pedagogical methods was also a focus area of the discussion.
Outlines of a to be formed search, verification and implementation committee were deliberated for adopting strategies, exemplary extracurricular activities and technology-based educational possibilities for improving science and maths education.
Leadership training for teachers and students and soft skill training through utilization of programmes under Nehru Yuva Kendra (NYK) and potentials of Mobile Lab and Atal Tinkering Lab, a project undertaken by the government of India to foster innovation and creativity amongst the students of India, to spurt interest in school kids were submitted by the forum members. The project also aims to mould younger generation with leadership skills and competency to approach real life problem in the pragmatic way.
One of the main highlights of the discussion was to come up with a quarterly format to submit a progress report to state level through the District Planning and Development Board on various education quality improvement parameters and infrastructure.
Lack of basic school infrastructures, teachers’ accommodation, Class 9 dropout rate, measures to improve village level enrolment of pre-matric and post-matric scholarship and the need for more tribal residential schools and hostels in the rural areas were another focus area of the deliberation.
Puchai P.M, a graduate teacher of Government Higher Secondary School Noklak and former president of All Nagaland School Teachers Association, Tuensang unit, in his presentation focused on improvement of students’ quality education and their overall uplift.
Acting head master of St. Paul School Noklak Piju Mathew, who is also an awardee of State Teachers Award 2020, spoke on the quality improvement measures taken by private schools that could be replicated in the district action plan.
Chongkoi Khiamniungan, coordinator and community development promoter of the Khiamniungan Baptist Churches Association (KBCA) dwelt on the sustainable human resource and educational development of the district.
Under the aegis of KBCA, she has tasked to look at and provide village level voluntary support and public mobilization to various departments of the district to ensure long term sustainable development with focus on short term and long term measures.
Khiamniungan said her focus area as the developmental promoter would be education and career guidance, skill development to boost local economy, agriculture, agri processing and marketing, tourism and promoting Noklak as the tourism hotspot of the North East India.
As a first step, she said career guidance cell would be set up in KBCA to benefit parents and children to show them the path to higher education, scholarships, reservation, government financial aids and employment opportunities.
To address the problem of no network connectivity in most of the villages of the district, the development promoter proposed for a campaign for mobilization of community participation through goodwill donation of Smart TVs and laptops for villages that are cut off from data connectivity and are not in a position to garner the benefits of online education.
NYK coordinator Muletolu Vero, who is also a United Nations volunteer, provided a number of insights on her previous experiences on actively coordinating and mobilizing the youth and the lessons from that which could be used to adopt the education and youth development to the cultural context of Nagaland.
Ten youth volunteers who were attached to the office of deputy commissioner to assist the district administration in data collection, IT cell support, awareness generation, dissemination of information and leadership building among youths provided their perspective of educational development and realities that they have faced while growing up as students.
