Noney kids make do with pathetic LP School

By Our Staff Reporter
IMPHAL, Oct 16 : Poor infrastructure and lack of facilities have plagued the only lower primary school at Muktina Village under Nungba Sub-Division in Noney with the school becoming more like a stable than a learning centre.
Reportedly, students are compelled to sit on the floor of the classrooms, be it in sizzling summer heat or monsoon rains, as the school doesn't have adequate benches and desks proportional to the number of students enrolled.
Situated just around 10 Km from Nungba, Muktina Village is inhabited by about 300 people belonging to the Rongmei tribe.
Apart from other shortages the villagers of Muktina have been facing all these years, lack of adequate teaching staff, infrastructure and facilities such as a toilet at the only lower primary school remains one of the leading concerns of the villagers.
Even as the school is lacking in infrastructure, the villagers are still working hard to keep the only lower primary school of the village alive by constituting a School Management Development Committee (SMDC).
Speaking to The Sangai Express, SMDC convenor Neiamngam Gonmei said that 40 students are enrolled in the school which provides education upto Class II.
Saying that the school, however, has only two teachers, he added that most of the walls of the school are riddled with holes.
The school also doesn't have any bench, desk, toilet and a kitchen to provide hot cooked meals to the students (under Mid-Day Meal Scheme), Neiamngam said. Saying that SMDC was constituted to look after the students as making them rely only on the facility being provided by the school may ruin their future, he added that grassroots education is very important to shape the future of the children. He went on to state that the Committee has been giving private tuition to the children at the house of a family who has shifted to Imphal by using benches and desks from the people in the neighbourhood.
Saying that they are also hiring  four teachers to teach the students  by giving them Rs 7,000 to Rs 10,000 per month, Neiamngam added the Committee also provides hot cooked meals to the children occasionally.
The children could not be given meals everyday as the Committee doesn't get adequate rice and funds from the Government, he added.
Village chief Kajukngai Gonmei, on the other hand, said that most children from the village go for further studies at Noney, Tamenglong and Imphal after completing the Class II course at the lower primary school by staying at relative places or boarding schools. Sending children for higher studies is a difficult task for the parents at the remote village in Noney, he added.
Stating that most of the villagers earn their livelihood by rearing pigs and planting crops, he added that marketing produce  is very difficult to them due to the pathetic road conditions connecting Nungba and  Mutkina village.
The road is not motorable whenever there is rain, he said and added that taking a sick person to Nungba Community Health Centre is difficult. He expressed desire for the Government to look after the shortage of infrastructure at the village and  to upgrade the lower primary school to  upper primary standard.