The dilemma of primary teachers in Nagaland: The broken or bridged course?
Dimapur: For one long week, the complex of Government Higher Secondary School, Chumukedima resembled a make-shift baby nursery. As the young mothers, all elementary school teachers, appeared for a ‘mandatory bridge course’ exam, babysitters and husbands waited outdoors for the three-hour test to get over. A 14-day-old baby was also not spared this ordeal as his mother, a teacher in a government primary school at Toluvi, sat for the bridge course exam. Another parent, Mahesh Singh, a businessman from Lhomithi colony, Dimapur, turned his van into a nursery for his 45-day-old child, that necessitated his mother to take an hourly break from her exams to feed him. Singh’s wife teaches in the primary section of a private school in Dimapur and holds a B.Ed. degree. “I am sharing responsibility, as she loves teaching and she will do anything for it. After all these months, it will be a waste if she loses her job for not doing this bridge course. It is her passion and I support her,” S...