Proscribed outfit asked parents of the parents and guardians to withdraw their children from the school and transfer them to other schools within the next three months
TFM Desk
Proscribed Kanglei Yawol Kunna Lup (KYKL) has imposed ban on functioning of Slope Land Public School at Salt Village in Khongjom, Thoubal District, and asked parents of the parents and guardians to withdraw their children from the school and transfer them to other schools within the next three months.
A statement issued by outfit’s Publicity and Research Secretary A.Yaiphaba on Friday said the decision was taken after giving it careful consideration and acquiring all the required information.
“And our actions speak for themselves. We have declared this after discussing it for more than a year. Therefore, we ask that parents and guardians not consider the ban we have imposed here to be a trivial matter,” warned the outfit.
The outfit said in the past four years, it had requested that the school authority provide an annual tax to the organisation. “A few years back, while we were taking up the ONK movement, we urged the institution to comply with certain principles and norms in order to save the ever-deteriorating education in Manipur and stop using unfair means in examinations. They ignored and did not care about it. Later, when asked to pay a tax to the organization, it did not listen to the request either,” it claimed.
The outfit further said, “they refused to allow our representatives to meet, did not receive our letters, and did not answer our calls. This means that the principal and authority of the school stand against KYKL and the liberation struggle it spearheads while viewing KYKL as flimsy and powerless. We have therefore resolved to ban the functioning of the school starting with 2023–2024 academic session.”
Stating that these days, opening schools, colleges, and other institutions in Manipur is entirely commercial, the proscribed outfit maintained that there is simply no aspect of social work involved in establishing them.
“They usually engage in a number of unethical and excessive practices in order to earn profit, including supporting the students directly or indirectly by school authorities while using unfair means during examination, utilizing manipulative tactics to increase student pass rate, engaging in shady dealings to produce more position-holders, hiring question setters to surreptitiously teach their students, investing a substantial sum of money to enroll position-holder students in their institutions, influencing higher authorities through corruption to give their students excellent grades, exploiting school teachers, collecting outrageously high admission fees, and imposing a bunch of unnecessary fees,” it said.
The statement said, “Much like operating a corporate organization, banks lend money to schools, and a chartered accountant calculates their income and expenses. Thus, the profit-making strategies of capitalism have so culminated in the field of education. The neo-liberal market economy’s destruction of the sanctity of education, despite the fact that it is a current trend, won’t lead to anything positive. It will impact society in negative ways. At this stage, it is critical to realize that not all facets of society are to be evaluated solely in terms of money and profit.”
On the collection of tax, the outfit said, “Launching a liberation movement costs a lot of money, much like running a government. The state levies taxes on the general public to generate the funds required to maintain a government. The ‘Lallup kaba’ of Kanglei history is also a form of tax that people paid in the form of service. Similarly, a revolutionary government levies taxes on the people. Here, everyone should be aware of the fact that, unlike making a donation, paying taxes is not something that one does in accordance with their preferences and that the tax rate is not set by the taxpayers.”
“Tax is something that no one can avoid paying, and the rate is determined by those who collect the tax, not the taxpayers. If the rate seems excessive, it is possible to negotiate it, but it is impossible to avoid paying any tax at all. Tax evaders must face consequences for their actions. Any government, whether it be a state government or a revolutionary government, is governed by such a law,” said the statement.