In Manipur, displaced children lose letters and spirit

“I miss my home, my village, my friends, but my parents say that we can’t ever go back,” 13-year-old Fidam, who had to leave his home in Churachandpur district during the violence in Manipur, told the Indian Express.

“I don’t even have their phone numbers,” Fidam laments, speaking to the publication.

While the violence has hit the academics for Manipur students, the displaced children have also suffered emotionally due to the unrest in the state. Teaching staff in the state have an added responsibility of finding solutions to these problems.

On the academic side, progress has been slow even though a huge majority of displaced children have been enrolled in schools near their relief camps.

As per the report, of the 15,207 children who have been left homeless due to the conflict, 14,301 have been enrolled since the schools began functioning in the state from around a month ago.

14-year-old Malenganbi,whose family was displaced from Motbung village in Kangpokpi, told the publication that she has started forgetting English.

“Since we left, everybody has been talking only in Manipuri. I feel like I’ve started forgetting how to speak in English,” she said.

To tackle such learning problems, the education department in the state has prepared two plans to help these children sail through the academic year, as per the report.

Manipur School Education Director L Nandakumar Singh told the Indian Express that Plan A involves eating into the winter holidays to offset the learning loss. In case the schools continue to be irregular, then the syllabus will be reduced by 30 per cent to keep focus on the core concepts as part of Plan B, Singh said.

Schools in Manipur reopened on July 5, about two months after the ethnic conflict began in the state. The state education department, at the time of opening of school, said that Manipur has 4,617 schools but classes in nearly 100 of them could not be resumed as the displaced people have been provided shelters there. Most of these schools were in Churachandpur district which saw the beginning of the violence.

Since then, according to the Indian Express report quoted above, some schools have started functioning while most of them do not witness classes due to various reasons.