The Tripura Government, which says is committed to improve the quality of education in the State by giving better opportunities to teachers, has sponsored 150 tribal students for acquiring Bachelor of Education (B. Ed.) and Diploma in Elementary Education (D. El. Ed.) qualifications outside the State to facilitate holding their jobs as better-trained teachers in the future.
Before leaving the State, the sponsored candidates gathered at the Pragna Bhawan Hall in Agartala on Saturday for an interaction with the Chief Minister of Tripura, Biplab Kumar Deb, the Education Minister, Ratan Lal Nath, and the Tribal Welfare Minister, Mevar Kumar Jamatia.
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Hiralal Debbarma, Director, Tribal Welfare Department, said that out of the total 150 students, 62 are girls and 88 are boys – who are being sponsored in two colleges, one at Murshidabad and another at Basirhat – both cities in West Bengal.
The ideas behind the interaction programme was to motivate the future teachers so that they are mentally prepared to adjust to a totally new ambience in a new place (read to pursue the course) and then come back and serve the State (read Tripura) with a lot of verve.
The CM, while addressing the gathering, stated, “All the candidates have been selected purely on the basis of merit and our Government, unlike the previous Left Front Government, never give priority to any candidate who comes with political backing.”
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He further stated, “I believe in calling a spade a spade. I do not believe in giving false assurances to people so that he or she will follow me like a shadow and finally after few years when the person realises that none of his or her aspirations have been fulfilled, they will become addicted to brown sugar or ganja.”
He also said that students of Tripura would be sent to the best of colleges with state-of-the-art facilities and “not like the previous dispensation where instead of quality education priority was given to ‘commission’, as a result of which the people of Tripura have thrown the Left Front Government out of power”.
However, Deb admitted that this time, many students were left out as “selection of colleges could not be completed as desired due to time constraint in the present session. From next year, more colleges will come under scrutiny”.
He also informed that immediately after the tribal students complete the courses, they will have to clear TET after which they will be able to land Government jobs as there are more than 5,000 vacancies.
The students were “elated” as the Tripura Government was sponsoring them for the said courses. Nesbi Debbarma, one of the sponsored students, said, “I am very happy that the Government is sponsoring me as I come from a very poor family. I hope after acquiring the said degree, I will land a job as a teacher. It is with this expectation that I am eagerly going out of the State to pursue the course though I have to sit for TET exams too.” Umakanta Reang and Subhakanya Debbarma echoed similar views.