From Our Correspondent
RESUBELPARA, July 2: Education and its related situation in Garo Hills comes once again into the limelight after social activist Greneth Sangma filed a complaint with the Director of Education, alleging various forms of irregularities in an ad-hoc school in Khaldang Songma village, North Garo Hills.
The school in question, the Khaldang Ad-hoc Upper Primary School, was initially started as a private school in 1968 before being given ad-hoc status in the year 1978. While the school currently has 34 students and 4 teachers this year, the situation was different earlier with many more students leaving the school, some allegedly over teacher misconduct.
According to Sangma, the school authorities have been accused of financial mismanagement, teacher recruitment issues and student dropout cases.
“As per the complaint, there have been unauthorised withdrawals of funds meant for mid-day meals and teacher salaries, a lack of transparency and fairness in the recruitment process and a failure to provide adequate support to students,” he stated.
He highlighted specific issues reported which include a student dropping out of school after being beaten. Further, teachers were appointed without advertisements being given, while on a more serious note, the interviews were conducted in the office of the Sub-Divisional School Education Officer of NGH and not in front of an interview board within the school. The appointments, he alleged, were not vetted by the SMC but only the president and secretary.
The activist had sought the termination of services of those involved in alleged scams and irregularities, the dissolution of the school managing committee and the setting up of a new committee as well as the conduct of fresh recruitment for the two posts that have come up after two teachers crossed 60 years of age.
The complaint was filed on June 2 after which an inquiry into the matter was sought. Incidentally, two visits were paid by the Cluster Resource Centre (CRC) of the education office to get to the bottom of the issue. This, however, came to a standpoint on Tuesday, when the CRC visited after someone called the police and claimed that violence could break out in the village. Not wanting to take chances, a police team was sent to ensure law and order. The villagers, peacefully, informed about the matter of the school and asked for a fair inquiry to take place.
As per locals, who visited the school on Wednesday afternoon, the school’s main issue has become the president and secretary (headmaster), who, they stated, was not adhering to norms prescribed by education authorities of the state.
“The SMC was appointed in the year 2022 and have already completed a period of 3 years as office-bearers. As we were extremely unhappy with the functioning of the president and secretary, we (villagers) moved for the SMC to be dissolved and new one formed. We even approached the office of the SDSEO with the request but curiously, the officer asserted that this was not possible,” claimed one of the villagers.
The villagers, still skeptical if some good would come off their complaint, stated that they were surprised when the CRC, which was to set up a public hearing, began to call each villager into a room for statements, on Tuesday. What was even more dumb-founding is that the president, against whom the villagers were complaining, was allowed to sit through the hearing before angry villagers pushed him out.
On the issue of mid-day-meals, students complained that in the first 6 months of school this year, only about 15 meals have been served to them. Further, as if the rations are private property, the allotment for the school was actually being kept in the home of the headmaster, for reasons known only to him. There is enough space for storage within the school compound.
The villagers also stated that prior to giving out advertisements for the vacant posts (only one post was put up on notice but not in any news or social media), there was no meeting with SMC members. Further, only 3 days notice was provided before it was pulled down.
The interview notice was taken out on March 7, and as an afterthought, a meeting was held though SMC leaders did not speak much on it. Another meeting was also held on March 27 after which angry villagers felt aggrieved as their questions were not being answered.
The villagers then got together to change the SMC as it was working against the interests of the school but as has been stated earlier, have been thwarted by the SDSEO’s reluctance to listen to their demands.
Repeated attempts to elicit a clarification from the SDSEO on the matter of the school were in vain as the officer did not answer calls made to him.