By Felix Anthony

Miao, July 18, 2022: Church people and parents in an eastern Indian state have rejoiced after all students of 16 schools of Miao diocese passed the tenth grade exam conducted by the Indian School Certificate Examination.

The results were announced July 18.

“Our students have shown that excellence in education depends on quality of teaching and not on the remoteness of the location,” says Ngapnai Jamikham, a parent from Kanubari in Longding district. The good result this year is a testimony to this fact, he added.

“Gone are the days when we used to worry about the education of our children. Thanks to the Church now quality education has walked into our doorstep,” Jamikham told Matters India.

Father Shoby Simon, the secretary Newman Educational Society (NES), the educational wing of Miao diocese that manages these schools, too said the results were “a great moment of pride for all of us, the teachers, parents and the students.”

The priest hailed the students’ achievement as “a remarkable feat considering all the difficulties and inconveniences the students and teachers face in this part of the country.

Total of 595 students appeared for the examination this year, 333 girls and 262 boys. Among them, 393 have secured first division and 202 second.

Congratulating the students and the teachers, Bishop George Pallipparambil of Miao, the NES patron, reminded all that while rejoicing over this year’s “great result,” they should not forget that the graduates of this year are just beginning their real life.

According to him, education will become effective and transformative when the school pays attention to earlier and future graduates.

NES established its first school in Borduria village in June 1992. Since then it has contributed much to the improvement of literacy rate in Arunachal Pradesh. Back in 1990, the literacy rate stood at 41 percent and now it has jumped to 59.94 percent.

Much of the improvement is due to the intervention of the Church, as it established schools almost in every remote corner of the state, the prelate claims.

“Poverty has no religion, health care has no religion and illiteracy has no religion,” Bishop Pallipparambil said. “Our goal is to take to education to the last, the least and the lost”.

NES has now 53 schools in the last eight district of the state with more than 17,000 students from the remote corners of Arunachal Pradesh. Some 750 teachers cater to the physical, spiritual and overall growth of these students.