For reasons that are more than just obvious, the state education department has been at the receiving end of some of the most withering criticisms from the Naga public as well as the local newspapers. That the state education department, over the years, has come to take the role of the public’s and the local media’s favourite punching bag is a sad reflection on the entire system of education in Nagaland today. Especially when the bogus teachers scam was exposed, its reputation hit rock-bottom.
And only recently the department was hit by another controversy via the Midday Meal scheme, the most jarring of which was the distribution of worm-infested rice to some schools in Mokokchung. The Naga public as well as the local media, quite rightly it must be said, cried foul and slated the department concerned for such horrible negligence. To even call the distribution of worm-infested rice to schoolchildren as an act of carelessness was unacceptable.
The entire episode once again left the state education department red-faced as it finally ran out of excuses. But credit where it is due – and the response from the department in the form of 26 pick-up trucks that were acquired for transportation of food-grains from SDEO office to the schools is indeed a welcome move from the department. As reported by Eastern Mirror on June 28 last, though there are no provisions under the MDM scheme to procure vehicles, the department went ahead with the idea “to effectively and properly implement the MDM scheme.”
At the launch of the vehicles, the Commissioner and Secretary for School Education was reported as saying that the scenario in Nagaland was slightly different even though the MDM programme was popular across the country. The Commissioner and Secretary said that some hurdles in the implementation of the program in Nagaland were beyond the control of the department.
On the same occasion, the minister for School Education was also reported as saying that his department had received opinions from “various quarters from the departmental officials, general public, student leaders, elected members and VEC members” suggesting the abolition of the MDM programme. Perhaps, this is an insight into how things really went inside the department when it was plunged into the MDM controversy.
Thankfully, better sense prevailed and in fact the department managed to take one step better by introducing the new transport vehicles. Quite frankly for the department, when caught in such a raging controversy, anyplace was a good place to start from. The minister for School Education and his team deserves credit for their response thus far.
The minister himself was quoted as saying “the idea may be good, but it does not run the system and give result, it is the men and the women on the ground who will give results to the ideas that have been born”. There is no doubting the fact that the road to redemption for the department concerned is indeed a long one. But it is worth remembering that from rock bottom, the only way you can go is up. And now, the department of education has the wheels required to do that.
