Kohima: The Nagaland government will undertake a major restructuring of government schools, including the amalgamation and closure of low-enrolment institutions, creation of composite schools and rationalisation of teacher deployment, an official said on Saturday.
Addressing the Nagaland Government Higher Secondary School Employees Association (NGHSSEA) General Conference here on the theme “Catalyzing Educational Transformation”, on Saturday, Advisor for School Education Dr Kekhrielhoulie Yhome said the School Education Department had gathered the necessary data and would consult teachers, communities and other stakeholders before implementing the reforms.
The restructuring is aimed at improving enrolment, infrastructure, governance and the overall quality of government education, he said.
Composite schools, particularly where institutions are located within the same or nearby premises, would provide students continuity from elementary to higher secondary education and could help improve enrolment.
Yhome said the department was facing shortages of teachers in key subjects, particularly mathematics, science and postgraduate teaching, while there were surplus teachers in other categories. Available resources would be redeployed to address critical shortages.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the conference, Yhome said the government would undertake emergency recruitment of graduate teachers in mathematics and science to address the shortage of subject teachers in government schools.
He also announced that the government would undertake emergency recruitment of graduate teachers in mathematics and science. The shortage, he said, was particularly acute in technical subjects including mathematics, physics and chemistry.
The issue has been recognised by the state Cabinet, and the modalities for the recruitment will be worked out by the government, Yhome said.
“If we do not have teachers, we will have no choice because our schools cannot be running on shortage of teachers,” he said, adding that the government may have to consider candidates from outside Nagaland if suitable teachers are not available within the state.
Yhome said around 780 postgraduate teachers currently constitute the NGHSSEA, while 70 more PGTs are expected to join after recruitment formalities, with another 30 posts in the pipeline.
He also outlined plans to strengthen curriculum, digital education, arts, music, socio-emotional learning and mother-tongue education.
The department is working with external organisations on project-based learning, art and music initiatives, while exploring the use of artificial intelligence in education, he said.
On teacher attendance, Yhome said the department was strengthening monitoring mechanisms to ensure regular attendance and classroom teaching.
A teacher attendance monitoring system is already in place, while the department is working with the Information Technology Department on an integrated system and mobile application to track attendance and leave records, he said.
The proposed system would link teachers’ leave records with their Annual Performance Appraisal Reports (APARs), he said.
He acknowledged connectivity problems in some areas and said teachers without internet access could upload attendance once they reached a serviceable location, with the data synchronised automatically.
On Sanskrit teaching, Yhome said schools under the Nagaland Board of School Education (NBSE) would continue to follow the state’s language policy, under which mother-tongue education is compulsory. Schools affiliated to CBSE and CISCE, however, would have to follow the respective mandates of their boards.
The government, he said, would not be required to provide additional support for Sanskrit teachers in schools operating outside the NBSE system.
On service matters, Yhome said the department was examining promotion and career-progression issues affecting postgraduate and secondary teachers in consultation with other government departments. He assured teachers that major reforms would not be implemented unilaterally.
“We will all work together. We are not going to take any unilateral decisions,” he said.
Earlier during the program, NGHSSEA president Yekavi Swu called for an early review of the higher secondary cadre and the Nagaland School Education Service Rules, 2017, which he said were nearly a decade old.
Swu also highlighted the shortage of PGTs in several higher secondary schools and urged the department to work closely with the association to address the concerns of the higher secondary cadre.
He stressed the need to balance academic and co-curricular activities under the changing education system following the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. PTI
