Manipur Students Trying to Cope With a Four Month Break in Studies

Imphal, Jan 26 : Though the four month long stalemate between the Manipur Government and student bodies has been resolved, students are facing difficulties in making up the time lost.

Schools were closed following a class boycott campaign led by various student bodies in protest against the alleged extra-judicial killing of a youth in July 2009.The prolonged protest raised the possibility of the loss of an academic year and caused serious concern to parents, teachers, and students. On January 8, the conglomerate of agitating student bodies gave in and schools were reopened.

Some students were worried about their future had even started exploring possibilities of pursuing their education in other parts of the country. Students said making up the lost time would not be easy.

“There won’t be any progress in our lives and the society. We even thought of going outside the state to pursue our studies but we aren’t financially stable, so we couldn’t even do that, said Joshita Devi, a student.”It’ll be difficult for us to make up the lost time that we have endured during the long study break. We have to try hard now to keep pace with our teacher’s lectures. It pressurizes us,” Mutum Anand Singh, another student.

With final exams not far away, students and teachers are left with no option but to go in for longer lectures and complete the courses quickly.While the agitation was going on not just students but teachers and non-teaching staff were also affected, and there was no one to pay attention to their plight.”In order to cope up with the missed out syllabus, we are teaching even during Sundays. Even our class timing which used to start from around 10 a.m, nowadays we are conducting earlier around 9.30 a.m,” said Mahesh Waikha, a Lecturer

“We are requesting the parents as far as possible to send the students properly and in time. There shouldn’t be no holidays, no occasional leaves so that we can as far as possible from the teachers’ community can cover up the syllabus,” said Khelchandra, another Lecturer.

Miscreants torched nearly a dozen schools that tried resuming classes forcing them to shut down. Private schools that have reopened now have decided to charge only a month’s fee instead of the fee for four months.