Nagaland government plans interim teacher arrangements at Sungro school after student protests over staff shortages and demands for Lotha language instruction
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KOHIMA — Advisor for School Education, Dr. Kekhrielhoulie Yhome, has said the government will make a stopgap arrangement to address the shortage of teachers at Government Higher Secondary School (GHSS) Sungro in Wokha district, following protests by students over the lack of teachers.
Responding to a query on the ongoing protest on Thursday, Yhome said the school has 153 students from Classes 6 to 12 and acknowledged that the absence of two teachers on maternity leave had affected classes.
He said the English teacher had been on six months’ maternity leave, resulting in around 50% of the Alternative English syllabus being covered, while 30% of the English syllabus remained uncovered. He added that the teacher was expected to rejoin the school next week.
The other teacher, who teaches Political Science, had also recently proceeded on maternity leave. Yhome said the district education officer had been informed about the leaves, but the Directorate of School Education had not received the information.
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He said the department would address the shortage but maintained that some of the other demands raised by the protesting students were beyond the government’s capacity at present.
On the demand for a Lotha language teacher, Yhome explained that the appointment of language teachers required recognised academic qualifications, which remained a challenge for several tribal languages in the state.
He said Angami and Sumi were currently the only two tribal languages for which degree-level courses were available. Angami studies (Tenyidei) extended up to the PhD level, while Sumi had been introduced at the university level.
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He added that the department was working with universities and tribal literature boards to develop courses and certification programmes, including postgraduate diploma and certificate courses, to facilitate the introduction of more tribal language teachers.
Yhome also said the department had conducted a survey to identify primary school teachers willing to convert their posts into language teacher positions, with 427 teachers expressing interest. However, he pointed out that speaking a mother tongue did not necessarily mean that a person could read and write it proficiently, which was an important requirement for teaching the language.
As an interim arrangement at GHSS Sungro, he said the Hindi teacher posted at the school could also speak, read and write Lotha, and the department could consider engaging him to teach the language.
He said the department was making efforts to address such demands through stopgap arrangements while working towards a more structured system for the development and teaching of tribal languages.