By Morning Star Sumer
The Notification No. 629, dated 5th September, 2013, promulgated by the Meghalaya Board of School Education (MBoSE), Tura, hereinafter referred to as the Board has, unwittingly provided eager beavers among our so-called/self-appointed champions of our indigenous people’s interests, a handle to wield their broom/mop waiting to sweep out whatever rubbish, real or imaginary, from the floor of our polity. What rubbish is on the floor now that these eager beavers are so intent on sweeping out? That which, in the eyes of these worthies, is rubbish, is, in fact, the good intent of the Board to offer students a wider range of choice of subjects to study in order to enhance/upgrade their prospects for success in any field of career choice, without the attendant increase to the workload they now have! It is the issue that concerns students and their parents alike but, no student(s) or student bodies and parent(s) or parent bodies have raised any hue and cry before or during a whole year of academic session 2013.
Now the protests have started. Since I feel that it is not appropriate, I wish to share my views with the public. Having taken cognisance of the fact about the good intent of the Board as envisaged in paragraph 1 above, it is inconceivable that anyone who has the interest of students at heart could misconstrue the Board’s good intent which, I repeat, is to offer students a wider range of choice of subjects to study in order to enhance/upgrade their prospects for success in any field of career choice, without the attendant increase to the workload they now have. One may state without fear of contradiction that all parents want their children to succeed in any career of their choice. How can they ensure that? It is through appropriate education involving courses of studies in chosen career fields. The Board is the constituted body to design the courses of study suitable for the times.
Like any other educational Board in the Country, the Board is constituted to implement and take forward the government’s policy on education. Therefore, it should have the mandate or autonomous freedom to decide and act in accord with that policy. The system should not remain static: it should be ever evolving to accommodate the changes that inevitably bring or carry challenges to be faced by succeeding generations of our students. That process should be in step with the global evolution in every field of human activities. Thus, through the years and decades we have witnessed the evolution of our educational system – from the Matric through Intermediate to Degree Courses and through Matric-Pre-University (PU) to Degree Courses and now from 10+2 to Degree Courses. All these and other changes had been brought into the system to meet the challenges of their respective times/time frames/periods.
Thus, today we are at the crossroads again where the Board has to devise ways and means to help today’s students in their struggle to rise ever higher to be able to reap the fruits of global evolution. Not only speed but also quality is of the essence if we want our children to compete successfully in a global field. To ensure acceptable quality we may have to drop or forego some load. The Board is doing just that by bringing in this change. Only the wearer knows how and where the shoe pinches. It is student(s) or student bodies and or parent(s) or parents’ bodies that should have raised any objection. Unless students’ or parents’ bodies had approached them, other bodies/organizations have no locus standi to stand on whether in law or any forum. It is therefore incomprehensible how a human rights body like Meghalaya People’s Human Rights Council had initiated any discussion on the issue because, to my knowledge, no student, parent or teachers’ bodies had approached any individual(s) or organi-zation(s) to move any authority to take cognizance of it. It makes one suspect that the move to protest was at the behest of some other person(s) or organization(s).
One sees no violation of human rights in this case because there is no denial of any right and the change of policy does not unduly burden the students/stake holders. The view that the change of policy will lead ultimately to the extinction of our language is fallacious and is an indication that we have tamely accepted the prognosis made by a branch of UNO, the UNESCO as published in its Atlas of the World’s Language in Danger listing the Khasi language among those becoming extinct. This is a fallacious view because a language dies only when no one uses it: it dies only when people using it traditionally no longer use it or it no longer exists. To ensure that it shall not become extinct the population using it should not diminish in number and/or existing population should not stop using it. We cannot hide it from ourselves that the so-called educated persons are increasingly injecting foreign words into our speech and writing: it is this practice that will eventually make our language become extinct.
The view that this change of policy diminishes the strength of our arguments for having our language listed in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution is also fallacious because, to qualify for a place in the Schedule, certain criteria may have to be met. However, we have in the person of Dr. Sylvanus Lamare, Principal, St. Edmunds’s College, Shillong, an eminent research scholar and State Representative in the Sahitya Academy, among our former State Representatives in the Academy, who should be able to enlighten us, and, we hope to see them coming forward to tell us what those criteria, if any, are. We should also seek to learn more about those who had moved the Sahitya Academy to list our language in the Schedule and what insurmountable obstacles, if any, had been placed in the way. It is to be hoped that the Khasi Authors’ Society will move to do everything possible to satisfy the criteria for the inclusion of our language in the 8th Schedule.
However, the change in policy has nothing to do with the Schedule. It seems to me that this issue of Schedule 8 has been brought into the arguments simply to obfuscate the people’s view of the issue for whatever gain any one may expect to have from it.
By using the words “jingiuhroit…hok longbriew…” the protesters are only rousing the emotions of people most of whom are already emotionally charged, they only reveal that they have no logical argument to support their views: it is a political ploy to force decisions by obtaining support through emotional appeal to the unwary, blinded by emotions.
The Board cannot introduce change in the curriculum without first having thoroughly deliberated on the need for the change and the ways and means to provide for it. That had been done by its Academic Committee since 2010 and one has no doubt at all that all educational institutions/colleges were in the loop since then. The decision to change policy was implemented from the academic session 2013 which is now coming to an end. The fact, that no protest had been lodged before and during that academic year speaks volumes of the insincerity in the claim that they are really concerned about the language issue or about the students’ interest.
It is shameful that some protesters have even gone to the extent of imputing diabolical motives to the Board’s intent in implementing a change recommended by a duly constituted Academic Committee. Such protesters cannot be taken seriously: they are only modern day Don Quixotes who would tilt at windmills: God forbid that our KHADC Councillors should fit that mould!
