Tag: K-Featured

Primary education in Manipur is not so prime but a fiasco.

By Bishwajit Okram.

The vital source of a nation’s strength is education. A good education system is like a gold mine of the nation. Manipur is yet to discover this mine, unfortunately.

Education precedes development always. Elementary and primary schools of a nation are the stepping stones of a good education system.

Neglecting this system at the start of the system and dreaming of 100% literacy one day, is like the story of a foolish dreamer kicking his milk pot.

By just mere analysing of few data, one can easily assess – there is a black hole in the primary education system in Manipur. It looks the system is severely paralysed and dysfunctional. It is a mouse click away for anyone to understand the state of primary education system

The symptoms are palpable and can be clearly vouched from the lackadaisical nature of the education ministry’s website itself.

Mr L.Jayanta Kumar who is still sitting there in the web page of the ministry of education as the minister, has been replaced by Mr DD Thaisii a year back. It is appalling at this advance informatics age; such a small change could not be made duly.

Apart from this, many of the information shown in the website are junk and irrelevant; it is very frustrating when one tries to get some relevant information.

This website is the mirror of our education ministry and our education system that we all endure of.

The inefficiency and the ineffectiveness of the ministry’s website are just the tips of the iceberg manifesting the underlying fiasco of our education system. The purpose of this article is to understand and analyse this fiasco from.

UNESCO found in its reports, only 83% of eligible elementary school pupils of India are enrolled in elementary schools in the year 2009.

But, for Manipur, it is 96%, according to a report, ‘Education Profile of Manipur’ based on Government of Manipur official data. It is a bit weird and absurd, this author himself visited some primary schools in Manipur during the month of November, and all he found was no pupil or a handful of pupils in every school he visited.

The Hindustan Times on 17 January, ran a head line “Fake admission brings down enrolments in Schools across India.” This report unearth scandalous, fake enrolment list of school pupils in government schools across the country. This author’s own eyes have verified this in Manipur.

According to Assessment Survey Research Centre Report (www.asercentre.org) 2009, in all India level, 69% of enrolment level in school takes place in government schools and 25% in private Schools. But it is just the opposite for Manipur. Manipuri’s enrolment in private school is 65% and in government school is 31%. The 2012 report from the same sources reveals –enrolment in government school has gone down from 31% of 2009 to 27% during the year 2011. It is plausible to think why!

At the same time the report says that there has been a surge in enrolment from 264019 pupils of 1991 to 285580 of 2001 and to 324096 of 2006, based on the Government of Manipur data. If this is to be believed, most of the enrolment are then happening in private schools.

The report, ‘Education Profile of Manipur’ added, “65% of the children who enrolled for class 1 never reach class V; 71% of them do not make it to class VIII”.

The Indian Express, in its 17 January print, a report goes the heading “Half of class 5 kids can’t read class 2 texts”. The Hindu says, “Class III students do not know simple mathematics of subtractions.”

Amid these facts, Manipur government claims that literacy rate of Manipur is 70%. Something amiss and contradictory indeed; it does not conjure away the flaws in the system.

This is can not be unique to other parts of India and exception to Manipur.

Is not it the time to re-define what literacy means? Crappy crabs needs to be churned out properly.

Let us assume for a minute, those pupils in 2001 were to write their class X exams in 2010. Then, only 34824 pupils matured to studentship out of the 285580 pupils of 2001. It tallied very well with the report that 71% of the pupils enrolled in primary schooling never make it to class VIII.

When it comes to the accountability, key stakeholders wash off their hands. Public scrutiny drive in this tiny state of 2.7 million people has been the epitome of the nation for years. There are host of student bodies, NGOs, activists and pressure groups doing this scrutiny and fighting for the rights to proper education in Manipur.

One will wonders why cracks are still not mended, despite so many policemen. Or is this the case of too many hawkish for this rate! Are they then a factor of impediment, rather then mitigating the ills, they compound the issues manifolds?

Teachers, they are happy campers, free salary for doing nothing. Black sheep outnumbered dark horses.

ASER 2011 says, 28% of enrolment in 2011 is with the government school and the figure could be safely presumed as about 100000. Assuming 1:20 is true for pupil teacher ratio, there could be around 5000 teachers.

According to a National Salary data, on an average, a government teacher gets Rs.156,880.00 per annum as salary. Other perks, allowances, peons, chawkidars and schools running overhead cost, together (say 50% of the teacher cost) this per pupil cost can go up to Rs200000.00 p.a. It means, per pupil cost of teaching is Rs.10000.00 which is way above the cost per pupil of private schools.(Assuming private school teachers gets on an average Rs.5000.p.m)

Johnny (name changed) from Khurai, Imphal, is an engineer by qualification but became a primary school teacher in Manipur. He said, “There is no student or very little students in my school of posting. For an ambitious person like me it is difficult to continue there, but I am paid, so I do go there for some hours every working day, sit there and come home”

Sonia (name changed) from Thoubal, a primary school teacher said, “There is no student to the school where I am posted at. So I don’t go to the school every day”

Anthony (name changed) from Chandel district says, “There is no student in the primary school of their locality. So the teachers don’t come there often. They pay some one to sign their attendant registers. This way many hill people are also get paid just to mind the attendance.”

When it comes to affordability and cost, government of Manipur is always at its knees.

Under the government of India plan, ‘Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan 2002’, all children are required to complete five years of primary schooling by 2007 and eight years of schooling by 2010. State has to contribute 10% of the total expenditure. But Manipur has been unable to pay this 10%, thus it is not authorised to use the balance 90% fully. Now, this ratio of expenditure sharing is going to go up from the IX and X plans onwards.

Another report says, Manipur still has many building less schools and teacher less schools. It is hard to digest to think of it in this 4th largest economy of the world, India.

According to IBEF report (www.ibef.org), 0.15% is the share of Manipur’s own all India Gross State Domestic Products. Foreign Direct Investment inflow to Manipur is just 0.05% of all India figure.

Scary enough, Manipur can not afford to teach its own children with its own money.

It shows how dependent we are to the government of India, even for our basic education right.

In the last five years from now, India’s education budget has increased from 152847 crore to 372813 crore, a jump of 244%. Out of this elementary education budget has increased from 7156 crore to 15000 crore. This is an increase of 210%.

Money is aplenty but the rider is- state has to contribute its own share as well. Education is a subject of state matter under Indian constitution. No doubt, salaries of schools teachers are paid every 3 to 4 months in Manipur.

Now matter how rich India grows, for Manipur unless every players in the education sector do not do a soul searching, Manipur will find it very difficult to come out of this black hole.
It may be through top-down or bottom-up approach or a mixture of the two, we have to find a solution to it.
Frederick The Great said: “An educated people can be easily governed.” Let us all understand this.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/01/primary-education-in-manipur-is-not-so-prime-but-a-fiasco/

By Bishwajit Okram

Simple facts of the two fastest growing economies of the world say, Chinese dragon is way ahead of Indian elephant in terms of their respective future economic growth. For India, the elephant needs to be winged to fly; she can not afford to wait for the evolution of a flying Elephant, writes Bishwajit Okram, Financial Controller, C&F Group, Ireland.

China will take over USA in 2018 as the world’s largest economy, says an economic game published in the December 31st edition of the Economist.

India is nowhere near the two; interestingly at the least, nowhere near China. The economic barometer is pointing towards a Chinese economic world no later than 2020.

The underpinning facts of Chinese economy overwhelm those of India’s.

India vs. China

China’s annual appetite for steel consumption is 868% more than that of India’s in 2010. Steel is a vital raw material for any development particularly in infrastructure and manufacturing industries.

China’s energy consumption is 598% more than that of India’s. Energy is like blood in a human body to business. It shows how hard the economy is working to produce more gross domestic product (GDP). The result in 2011 says, China’s GDP growth is 9.2% where as India’s will be 7% as the prime minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, reckoned.

The economic growth of China is paying off now: they have more than 200 billionaires as compare to 69 of India in 2010.  They spend around $192 billion in public health, where as India spent only $65 billion, when the population is now very close. Life expectancy is 75 year in China 75 but in India it is around 65 only.

China’s expenditure on health care system is nearly 5 times that of India.

The gap between India and China is widening in terms of values of most social indicators of living standards, such as life expectancy, infant mortality rate, mean years of schooling, the coverage of immunization. 97 percent of Chinese children are immunized with DPT vaccine, in contrast with India’s meagre figure of 66 percent.

India’s prime minister announced that he was ashamed of the fact that India still has many malnourished children despite being fastest economies of the world.

In the field of research and development, India has not made a dent yet. The fact that in 2011,  12.3% of residential patents registered in the world is from China , a massive increase in its registration , suggest that they are truly emerging as a world leader in innovation. Recently the world has been taken aback with China’s announcement of sending astronauts to the moon and sending a well designed space station after USA is abandoning its own.

China  became competitive faster than any other countries over the last one decade. This is one reason why companies would like to flock in China. According to the world competitive ranking China is at 31st position as compare to India, which is at 50th position.

The only area, India has a point to smile, is their domestic consumption which is not far off from that of China’s. China’s retail sales in 2009 were $360b, which is just 25% more than that of India’s.

Strong retail sales are a sign of strong domestic market. This can also be interpreted in different ways: China has a huge potential for its retail market as the domestic market is still yet to be exploited.

Another critical negative factor for India’s economy are the inflation and the unemployment rates, which much bigger than China’s. India’s average inflation rate for 2011 was 9%, where as China’s inflation was less than 6%. The Unemployment rate of India was nearly 9%, when China had 4% which is considered negligible according to international standard. India’s credit rating is BBB- where as that of China’s is AA-. This is one reason, why India’s overseas funds withdrew a net $380m in 2011 compared to record inflows of $29bn in 2010.

China still has net foreign assets of $2 trillion or more. The biggest of all is that China has $3 trillion foreign exchange reserve, the highest in the world where as India has only $314 billion as at the end of 2011.

Recent announcement of the government of India of huge food subsidies is fraught with many economic ills. Dr Manmohan Singh, the prime minister of India said in his new year’s speech that India need pare back subsidies and implement tax reform because he was concerned about fiscal stability in future.

The Nobel Laureate in Economics, Prof. Amrtya Sen once said that the distinctions  are important for the emerging economies which are trying to decide where to emerge. India needs no horse race competition with China in relation to the economic growth figure but with the other aspects of social values developments, quality and standard of living developments, democratic values and political liberties.

Over the last two decades, in all the social indicators, India has persistently declined even in the areas of social development indicators as compare to Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and even Bhutan. Bangladesh has taken over India in nearly all the social indicator.

Many more Indians have various deprivations, undernourished, unschooled, and medically uncared much, Prof. Sen pointed in a recent seminar at New Delhi.

Financial times quoted Kunal Kumar Kundu, senior economist at Roubini Global Economics in Delhi as saying that at the end of the day, it was all about attractiveness of the market. Remember, even Indian investors were now more prone to investing outside of India than they were within India, given the various issues they are facing – policy paralysis and corruption.

India needs to pull its shocks especially by the policy makers and politicians. India is not dying; but India is simply not staying fit to fight for global economic dominion. The pulse rate, through the economic stethoscope, says India’s economic pulse is much slower that that of Chinese.

It is time to put wings on the elephant, rather than waiting for an evolution of flying elephant, lest China will be the next USA, not a hearty choice for India.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/01/india-vs-china-the-elephant-can-not-fly-like-the-dragon-unless-winged/

By : Bishwajit Okram, LL.M and ACCA.

The cultural and linguistic rights of Khoibu and Shaibu tribes must be respected by Maring tribes of Manipur.

“It is estimated that, if nothing is done, half of 6000 plus languages spoken today will disappear by the end of this century”, Recommendations to UNESCO for Action Plans on the Safeguarding of Endangered Languages (2003).

“With the disappearance of unwritten and undocumented languages, humanity would lose not only a cultural wealth but also important ancestral knowledge embedded, in particular, in indigenous languages”, UNESCO.

Khoibu and Shaibu tribes of Manipur fear that their language will be among the half of 6000 plus language spoken today which is under a threat of extinction, if nothing is done.

History has witnessed many such disappearances. English annihilated Ireland of its own Gaelige culture and language. Meitei scripts and culture were uprooted some centuries ago by the Bangalis with their culture, language and scripts.

Khoibu and Shaibu tribes’ fear is logical. They must do something and state should protect their identity. Both, national and international law strongly provision for such preservation and protection.

Khoibu tribe and Shaibu tribe of Manipur, having around 3000 and 1000 population respectively, in a country of 1.2 billion population, should be declared as endanger tribes of the world and be called for the protection of their cultural, language and historical heritage.

In a recent interaction, a young, educated couple from Khoibu and Shaibu tribes, explained why their tribes are not at all a sub-tribe of Maring and that they are now under imminent threat from this major tribe of losing their language and culture to extinction.

“Tangkhul Baptist priests used to teach and translate bibles in Tangkhul languages in our villages and Maring villages, but the Tangkhul priests are no more doing this now,” problem started from this point explained the husband. “Marings are now trying to impose their language upon these two tribes who have utterly different languages of their own from Maring,” added the husband.

On being asked as to why their tribes were not recognised separately earlier under Indian govt gazette, both (husband and wife) admitted: “It was until just some generation ago that their tribes started going to school and colleges. There were not many educated people in the villages. People were very poor. We remained ignorant till today. There was nobody who could fight for our case”

Both the husband and wife resented, “We have been forced to add ‘Maring’ in the end of our names.”

“The Shaibu tribe has altogether a different dress code, colour, language, rituals and food habits” claims the Shaibu husband.

“When there is nothing called similarity and commonality between us and the Maring, except that we live in hills, where is the question of we being called Maring which is not our own tribe’s name, ” added bitterly by the Shaibu tribe.

“Now that bible is forced to read in Maring language. We don’t know Maring language. Our parents do not understand Maring language. But we want bible to be read in our own language for our own clarity and understanding”, the Khoibu wife continued.

“We must send linguistic scholars and anthropologists to verify our claims and their claims, otherwise there could be violence in future among the tribes”, said the Shaibu husband.

UN declaration on the rights of persons belonging to national or ethnic , religious and linguistic minorities has been adopted by the UN Commission on Human rights in its resolution 1992/16, 21 February and then, by the General Assembly in its resolution 47/135 on 18 December 1992.

Article 1 and 3 of this declaration requires member countries to protect minority linguistic rights and under article 2 of the declaration, it says, “ Persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities (hereinafter referred to as persons belonging to minorities) have the right to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion, and to use their own language, in private and in public, freely and without interference or any form of discrimination. […]”
Indian constitution has plenty of articles that protect and sustain linguistic rights.
Article 14 of the constitution expressively says that every citizen of India shall have right to equality before the law and equal protection of the law.
Article 29(1) of the constitution says any section of the citizen has the right to conserve its distinct language , script or culture.
Article 350(A) and 350(B) have gone a step further, saying that state must provide provisions for facilities for instruction in mother-tongue at primary stage and for a special officer for Linguistic Minorities and his duties respectively.
The rights of persons belonging to linguistic minorities have been increasingly acknowledged in international human rights law as both individual and collective human rights.

Khoibu and Shaibu tribes must present their case with supporting evidences and fight for their rights. Set an example before other tens and hundreds of suppressed tribes!

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/01/an-article-on-cultural-and-linguistic-rights-of-some-tribes-in-manipur/

By Bishwajit Singh Okram

Holiday Manipur

Without development and supporting infrastructure, why should tourists come to Manipur?

Lack of adequate infrastructure and support system betray tourists visiting Manipur for holiday, writes Bishwajit Okram about a recent holiday to Manipur..

Manipur is a multicultural and multi ethnic state. It boasts a temperate climate ranging from 0 to 32 degree cc. Its natural vegetations, abundant varieties of faunas, orchid plants and flowers are world famous. Unlike other populous parts of India, Manipur has a thin population, just less than 2.5 million in areas of more than 22000sq.km, north east of India.

I reckon, when the captain announced that the airbus was descending for landing from a height of 30Kms, I looked out through the window: there I found the place, Manipur being enveloped in a bluish-purplish coloured landscapes. This was in October end, 2011.

My list for the sight seeing was long: 1)Singda dam, the highest mud dam in India, 2) the kangla fort, 3) the barak river, the peculiar flower- Lily of Shirui hill, 3) the willong khullen stone erection, 4)Sadu waterfall of Ichum Keirap village, 5)famous pure water Loktak lake and 6) Kakching’s newly built hill garden.

I however could visit only few places with utmost difficulty.

Surprisingly, except some parts of the National Highway 39, most part of NH 39 and other state roads are still not road worthy. It is difficult to drive at a speed more than 20 to 30 kilometres per hour.

There are no handy tourist offices to assist visitors to the state. A fellow tourist was lamenting that there were no guides available even in the state capital, Imphal, who could take tourists to these places. There were no tourist buses taking tourists and going to these places, he continued. It should all be organised privately, which I did through a friend.

Taxis and private car operators are available only at the airport and bus stands in the state capital, Imphal. It is extremely difficult to call a cab or rent a car for a drive to any place.

Security is another concern. A hotel boy said that it was very dangerous to venture out late at evening or at night.

Except few hotels of 2 or 3 star standards in Imphal, these tourist spots I listed above have few night stay facility or not at all. Tourists should, therefore, not plan for night stay at these places.

My daughter was hospitalised due to a stomach infection and the doctor advised to us all: “Do not take food from street vendors and any roadside hotels.” Always carry a pack lunch or eat brunch (breakfast+lunch) before you set off for any of these places.
It means one really needs to plan and if one is lazy about planning, this is not the holiday place one should go. On the other hand one can consider holiday in Manipur as an adventure!

But one good thing is, one can visit to any doctor at any time.

Tracks leading to these actual places are mostly narrow footpaths. One requires some physical stamina to walk long and many uphill. Most of these places are suitable for young people, both single and couple. These places are not elderly and handicap friendly either.

One of the good market segments of tourism is the senior citizen segment as they have money and time. But there is nowhere any sign that managers of these places tried to tap this market. Same is with the handicap tourists’ market segment.

Someone said that the first Prime Minister of India, Pt Jawaharlal Nehru, had admired Manipur as Switzerland of India sometimes in the middle of 20th century. Today we are in 21st century post a decade, if Nehru were alive; one would wonder what he had to say in this high tech era. Perhaps, he must have seen Manipur from the top in his prime minister’s helicopter.

Not every ordinary tourist like me could afford a chopper though!

Manipur has many hot tourist spots and it is beautiful on the whole. It is only the development of the place and supporting infrastructure that are missing. But for a tourist, it is not worth spending a cent visiting this place, at this present situation.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/12/holiday-manipur/