IMPHAL, July 26: The Manipur Students’ Federation has demanded responses from the state education (s) directorate on numerous issues including alleged malpractices by directorate officials including alleged siphoning off of rice meant for distribution as mid day meals.
At the same time, the student body has also expressed appreciation for the top officials of the department for the recent notification regarding the increased in student intake of class XI of both Arts and Science in the government higher secondary schools.
The federation had called a press conference this evening at its Sega Road office, wherein its president Laishram Ibomcha has accused that many additional inspectors and deputy inspectors of the department has been siphoning off around 40-60 percent of rice meant for mid day meals meant for the BPL students of the state.
Further questioning the ZEOs of the directorate and the authorities concerned whether they have any knowledge of the siphoning off of the rice, Ibomcha has strongly demanded a clarification from the department on the issue which has plagued the primary schools in the state.
Side by side to the clarification, the student body through its president has also demanded from the higher authorities of the department to recover the alleged siphoned off rice and initiate action against the accused AIs and DIs incase they are found guilty.
Further maintaining on the issue, it has also demanded answers on how many AIs and DIs can the department employ and how many can a certain ZEO keep under them.
Further ranting the department for using many teachers as in-charge of AI/DI, it has asked if there are any rules and regulations for employing the AIs and the DIs and also added if only trained teachers could be appointed as AIs or if untrained teachers could also appointed.
The student body has also charged that many teachers who had been appointed as primary teachers have been promoted to graduate teachers and has further added if the department has any requisite parameter to promote a primary teacher to a graduate teacher.
The student body president has requested to the higher authorities of the department to provide their response on the various topics that MSF has put before the department and has further informed that incase of failure of the department to clarify on the issues, the student body will apply for the department’s response through the exercise of RTI.
Meanwhile, MSF has further appealed to the edu (U) department to increase the intake of students in colleges to cater to the needs of students.