Mon: Nagaland does not feature on the top when it comes to providing education facilities to its youth. The state’s literacy rate may be higher than the national average but pales in comparison to states like Mizoram.
The state also has only a few quality higher educational facilities, and even in 2023, the state does not have a medical college.
EastMojo has covered the issue of the digital divide in Nagaland in great detail in the past, and it seems like despite the end of the pandemic, things are far from okay in the state. One of the oldest schools in the state and the oldest in the Mon district, the Government High School Wakching, stands on the brink of collapse due to poor maintenance and no attention from the government.
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Located about 33 KM from Mon town, the school in question is essentially an old wooden bungalow painted white with rustic brown CGI sheeted roofs and surrounded by a lush green lawn.
The school, built in 1958, has been subjected to negligence, creating fear among students, teachers, staff and residents due to the dilapidated condition of the school building.
Although the mid-century school building recently received a facelift, one can only imagine the fear at the horrific sight of slanting pillars (metal and RCC) holding onto the old walls from the outside while wooden pillars support the walls and broken ceilings inside every classroom.
The problems are not limited to structural issues. There is hardly any school classroom with proper floors, doors and windows. While studies have shown that poor school conditions make students feel negative about their school’s norms and expectations, this school in the easternmost part of Nagaland is fighting to provide basic education to rural schoolchildren.
When EastMojo visited the school, we learnt that the school had been functioning without a headmaster/headmistress or an assistant for the past five years. Among 14 teachers who taught 131 students at the school, Dhrup Tiwari, a 44-year-old teacher who has been teaching at the school for 21 years, was appointed as the head teacher.
“With all the available resources we have at hand, we are running the school for classes VI-X. Since the base of the school building is so weak, RCC pillars to support the walls were built in 2014 and later in 2018-19, iron pillars were erected to keep the building standing,” Tiwari narrated.
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However, during monsoons, it becomes a challenge to hold classes as the CGI roofs and ceilings are broken. “For about 6-7 months during the rainy season, it becomes a challenge as students have to be shifted to the usable classrooms or to the Assembly hall,” Tiwari said.
Despite all odds, he said that imparting education was the primary duty of the teachers and the show must go on.
“Unfortunately, there is a one-sided teaching and learning system here which makes it very difficult. Teachers who come to the school try their best to teach but we have observed that at home, parents pay less attention to their child’s education,” he said.
While children sent to government institutions are given less attention as compared to students attending private institutions, he observed that another reason for dropping out from the government is the lack of employment opportunities. Students who dropped out were mostly engaged as household servants in semi-urban areas like Kohima and Dimapur, according to him.
Tiwari informed that on average, 15-20 students dropout of school in one academic session. Lack of interest in education, he observed, is one common factor behind poor academic performance and high dropout rate.
This year, he informed EastMojo that 25 students are appearing for the High School Leaving Certificate (HSLC) exam in the Mon district. In the past five years, the school’s HSLC results stand at 8%(2022), 26% (2021), 12%(2020), 13%(2019), and 9%(2018).
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The 64-year-old government high school, in its dilapidated condition, is thriving to survive the test of time, but there is fear that it can collapse-not just physically but also academically.
Fortunately for the school, it recently received 42 modern table sets replacing some of the old unusable tables and benches. In 2019, the school was electrified with solar panels. But despite major facelifts, the infrastructure makes it clear that only a new building can do the job and no amount of facelifting or renovation activities would be of much help.
Leang Konyak, 62, the foster mother of a Class 9 student at Government High School Wakching said, “We get so worried, especially during the rainy season. The school has been the same since the time I can recall. I don’t understand why it was never rebuilt.”
The mother of five told EastMojo that on the dying bed of her foster child’s father, she and her husband, a church worker, had promised to look after the girl child. Besides their children, they had adopted four other children-two male and two female.
The girls, she said, are school-going children, with the younger daughter studying in class V. “I never attended school. But my husband and I made sure that all our children receive an education. I have faced difficulties because of my inability to read or write. Without education, it feels like I am blind and deaf,” she shared.
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When EastMojo met her at her residence at Wakching, one of Leang’s biological daughters was seen teaching a group of about 15 students who surrounded her in a room, reading their lessons out loud.
“There is hardly any space but we cannot stop children who want to learn from coming here for tuition. We have never stopped any of our children from going to school and we encourage other parents about the need to impart education to their children,” the mother shared on the significance of acquiring education.–
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