14 Oct :Chief Minister of Nagaland, Neiphiu Rio extended warm greeting to the ANPSA on the occasion of its Silver Jubilee on 14th October 2008. A day long programme was held at DDSC stadium Dimapur with several affiliated private schools of the State participated in various entertainment programmes to mark the occasion.
The Chief Minister in his speech thanked the Association for their invaluable contribution in imparting quality education to the student community in the state. He also said that the main objective of the association should be to provide mutual support to its members in time of need and their grievances to be heard in various forum and through this foster stronger bounding amongst the members.
Rio also said that ours is a welfare state which take the task of promoting free education to all citizen up to the primary level and the private schools are also increasingly playing very important role in this task specially in providing quality education to the citizens. In Nagaland a good quality education at the school level is difficult to find in the government schools and private schools are filling up their vital gap, he opined. He also said that although the teachers in the government schools are paid almost double of what the private schools are paying to the teachers yet where it comes to quality of teaching the private schools are far ahead of the government schools which is clearly reflected every year in the HSLC/HSSLC exam results. Therefore the chief Minister thanked and congratulated the All Nagaland Private School Association for their achievement in positive contribution to the society.
The Chief Minister also said that education is the most basic requirement for human resource development and that is why the National Human Resource Development report plays at the top of human development indicated as per the census report of 2001. Although Nagaland has already achieved a reasonably high rate of literacy much above the national level yet there are still critical gap in our education system mostly due to syllabus not being adequately updated to suit the ever changing job requirement, he stated adding that as a result many of our educated youth remain unemployed, unable to find suitable placement in the job market. They are looking only for white colour jobs under the government which is we all know, is already over saturated, he disclosed.
He further said that education standard in Nagaland, specially in the private schools is as good as in any other part of the country. He observed that our boys and girls are also diligent and hard working while in the schools but the moment they pass out of the school and enter the portals of the colleges in Nagaland there is a certain decline in the quality and quantity of their application to the studies. Which he said indicates that we are not yet mature enough as a people and that we do not know how to exercise or utilize our freedom in a constructive manner. Whereby he want everyone to ponder on this to make out strategy to reverse their tendency, it is this reason which stand in the way of the many talented Naga achieving real success in the academy, business and sports arena etc, he added.
The Chief Minister further said that today sports has become an important and integral part of formal education and not merely an entertainment, but it has become a viable and lucrative profession and he appealed to all the private schools to introduce a minimum of three disciplines of sports in their school as co-curricular activities. He further said that the government will work out a mechanisms to give financial support and incentives to the private school for these purpose. As the government recognizes the immense contribution of the private school for providing quality education, the government will provide support and cooperation even in the days to come, he assured.
In his welcome speech the President of ANPSA, Ahito Sumi thanked the state government for providing computers to many members of the ANPSA and he further appealed to the Chief Minister to provide facilities like Science Laboratory equipment, physical education and vocational teachers and playground as many associated members lack this facilities.
Around 12000 students and teachers from various schools attended the programme. Altogether there are 160 affiliated members in the ANPSA.
