Importance and Significance of Education in Darjeeling

By Ichamani Chettri

We know the significance and importance of Education in our life, but yet we are careless. We know this to be the age of Information and Technology but yet we are in Stone Age!

Why aren’t there any Army officers, Naval officers, Air force Officers, I.A.S officers, I.P.S officers, Engineers, Doctors, I.F.S. officers, Ambassadors or other Administrative and Executive officers?

Hardly 0.000006% of our people are I.A.S officer and most of them come from SC or ST quota, percentage is taken 10 out of 1.5 million). Here the percentage is so low that the real question that arises is when will it reach 1 per cent.

If we will not do anything now then our percentage will decrease instead of increasing.

The one and only solution for this is education. I don’t want to say that we are not educated, we are educated If we get our statehood then I am sure our state will be a Liberated state in India with more then 95% literacy rate. The problem is we have college without subjects and lecturers, we don’t have good labs for science colleges, we don’t have options to choose the subjects, we are forced to take compulsory subjects.

Let us take the example of Kurseong College, in Science faculty (Math’s, Physics, Chemistry) are compulsory they don’t have a options to take a combination of (Maths, Physics and Geography), (Mathematics, Chemistry, Statistics), (Mathematics, Physics, Electronics), (Mathematics, Statistics, Geography)…..etc, there are so many other subjects till now we don’t the name of those subject.

Second problem is the syllabus which is offered to us is not good, because I have completed my Madhyamik Pariksha from Pushpa Rani School. I am also the student of Mr. Surendra Podder who is journalist of Himalaya Darpan, teacher of Pushpa Rani School and Member of Kurseong Municipality, whenever he used to come to our class he always said “Throw your learning English in Dhobi Khola”, I do agree with him because the standard was very low. In class nine and Ten we never studied about “Matrix” where as the student of I.C.S.E have to study “Matrix Addition and Matrix Subtraction”, ”Matrix multiplication and their properties “ are included in the syllabus of I.S.C even in the syllabus of C.B.S.E we can find these topics, but in our west Bengal syllabus we didn’t see the word “Matrix” till class 12^th mathematics. After class 12^th we are eligible to appear for NDA Entrance test which is conducted by UPSC. In such test some questions are asked about “Matrix”, Now tell me how we can take commission in Defense without studying “Matrix”. I have given you the example of Mathematics, may be something is happening with other subject also.

Here what I mean to say is that the path which was shown to us we are still following that path we never tried or trying to bring twist to our path. Now I request to all the people of Darjeeling its time to work hard because now its time prepare our own syllabus. My humble request to Surendra sir, Alley Sir, Sushila Madam and also other teachers of Pushparani school and entire teachers, lecturers, If we found in book that something wrong about the syllabus then we have to change the syllabus because your experience of Teaching Knows what is the syllabus of Class 8^th ,9^th ,10^th comparing with other boards.

Surendra Sir, please don’t mind let me tell you the fact because whatever mistake you have done in future it should not be repeated by others .If you had done something at that time then I believe our syllabus might have been changed and instead of learning English our students were/are studying some other English. Today I can’t write good English why? Because I have studied learning English rather then other good English. Also I still remember whenever you used to take our class at that times you used to say that what is the use of studying History, Geography ??, We don’t know about our grandfather history but we are studying about Babar, Akbar and ……… . In geography we are studying about food grains which we cannot produce in Darjeeling. These subjects are useless instead of these subjects there must be class where we can teach our students about the work of Cobbler, Barber, Tailor……………………………………………,Sir If you will teach us like this then all the student of Pushparani will be Barber , Cobbler, Tailor and………. .Sir now we have to be advance we have to think something unique something extra ordinary. We will study History, Geography, Learning English beside this we will teach our student something technical Such as lab Technician (D.M.L.T), Computer related diplomas or programming, Diploma in electronics. Such type of courses we can introduce in Pushparani School even in other school.

If we are offered good subjects, good teachers then definitely we will achieve and cross the above mentioned percentage. For this target great efforts must be given by the teachers you are responsible to build our District, State and Country. Specially I request the Intellectuals and political Leaders of Darjeeling Such as Dr. M. P. Lama, Dr. Harka Bhadur Chettri, Mr. Bimal Gurung to bring the changes in the field of Education so that every body in Darjeeling can understand and study the subjects by their interest and choices. We have to introduce so many departments and subjects in each and every college of Darjeeling, Kurseong, Kalimpong and even in Sikkim. Also we have to build Degree college for Engineering, Medical Science, Pharmacy, Law, Management etc……..

These changes should be done immediately then only we can be Army officer, naval officer, Air force Officer, I.A.S officer, I.P.S officer, Engineer, Doctor, I.F.S. officer, Ambassador or other Administrative or Executive officer.