The Democratic Students' Alliance of Manipur (DESAM) on Saturday warned the state government of filing a case before the High Court of Manipur if the state government fails to address the issue of shortage of teachers of Dhanamanjuri College of Teachers Education (DMCTE).
Speaking in a press meet held at DESAM office, vice president Sital Oinam said the state government should come to a decision concerning teachers education and make an announcement to the public. He said that DMCTE's M Ed course has been running for 15 years without having sanctioned posts.
Without a regular principal, the caretaker in-charge is running the course, he said. When the public raised its voice to the authorities to recognise the DMCTE, the state government covered the shortages of required teachers from other colleges and through utilisation. But those teachers have not been coming regularly for the past many years. The state government should bring a long lasting solution to the issue, he said.
“For B Ed College also, there are shortages and teachers are utilised from other colleges. Getting salaries from one college while working at another makes the teachers become negligent in their work as teachers,” Sital said.
According to National Education Policy 2020, B Ed colleges should not have single courses, they will become multi-disciplinary; therefore, the fate of DMCTE will become unpredictable after four- five years, he further said.
If the state government is unable to appoint teachers of DMCTE, then all the teachers of the college can be combined to turn it into an advanced study centre or bring it under one University, he said. Also, the state government can create an Integrated teachers education programme, Shital suggested.
For the Performance Appraisal Report made by National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), DMCTE is yet to submit its data till date, he said. The reason behind is there are no regular principals and due to shortage of teachers. DESAM has been demanding to appoint teachers and a regular principal for many years, he maintained.
The state government is yet to recruit teachers of colleges for the coming Integrated Teacher Education Programme.
The state government should also bring out a white paper with concrete plans concerning the issue or else a case will be filed before the High Court, he said.
Meanwhile, Democratic Students Alliance of Manipur (DESAM) in another press conference announced that the National Eligible Test (NET) examination of Manipuri subject which was held under UGC on Saturday cannot be considered as valid and demanded a new date for re-examination.
In a press meet held at DESAM office located at Keishampat, DESAM vice president Sital Oinam said that all the script in the question papers of Manipuri subject were in Bengali script.
“Many MA Manipuri students have dropped from giving the examination. The Manipuri department should take responsibility for the blunder. In 2021, as per Manipuri Official Language Act, the Manipuri language written in Bengali was changed to Meetei Mayek,” he said.
Afterwards, Manipuri MA students have been learning the subject in Meetei Mayek till third semester. During the examination, third semester students of Manipuri MA were unable to give the exam as the questions were in Bengali script, he said. “Therefore, the examination which was held on Saturday should be declared invalid and a new date should be rescheduled for re-examination,” he added.
