Guwahati: With his new tag “national awardee,” Ningthoujam Binoy Singh, headmaster-in-charge of a local government upper primary school, stands tall with a smile to the people of the placid Keibul Lamjao, his native village in Manipur’s Bishnupur district.
Located close to the famous Keibul Lamjao National Park, the largest floating wildlife park of the world and home to the rare and endangered brow-antlered deer, locally known as Sangai, the school now shines bright with a new building construction, though a finishing touch is due.
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Singh is the power behind upgrading the once neglected and dilapidated Chingmei Primary School, with a students’ strength of just five then, to an upper primary school with as many as 232 students now, with sufficient teachers, with the school now becoming an attractive and popular study centre for the students of the area.
Moreover, Singh has been currently providing free education to around 20 students, along with free uniforms and study materials, in his school, who have been taking shelter at nearby relief camps, after being displaced in the unceasing ethnic clashes.
Acknowledging his massive contribution towards an overall development in the field of education, Singh along with 74 teachers from across the nation, was honoured with the prestigious National Teachers’ Award 2023, on the occasion of Teachers’ Day on September 5 this year.
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“I am happy to have received the award. This is the prize of my contribution towards developing education in my village. This is not the end as my journey to uplift education is still on. My target is to make the young generation of Keibul and the adjoining areas literate,” Singh said on Saturday.
Recounting the journey of his teaching profession, a soft-spoken Singh said he joined the Chingmei Primary School as an assistant teacher in 2002.
“At that time, the school was in bad shape. Its walls were broken, all furniture was old and grungy and the floor was not tidy. Moreover, there were only five students and three teachers, including me. On seeing the poor condition of the school, people of our village sent their children to private schools spending a hefty amount of money. With the primary target to develop our school, I made up my mind and got my school repaired and bought new furniture from my own money,” Singh said.
“I then engaged five more teachers from nearby private schools by giving them a slightly higher salary than what they used to get. On seeing the changes of our school with eight teachers and its repaired structure, parents and guardians of our village and the nearby areas began sending their children to our school,” he added.
For students who belonged to economically deprived families, Singh provided free study materials and uniforms which in turn attracted more students to the school. Apart from this, he also managed to bring in drop out students of the village to his school.
Now, the Chingmei Upper primary school Singh groomed has 232 students and 16 teachers of which seven are regular, four contractual and another five are engaged ones.