[Bengia Ajum]
MIAO, 16 Apr: Changlang district has been selected for the Prime Minister’s Award for Excellence in Public Administration-2022 for its initiative, New Age Learning Centre (NALC), in the category of ‘innovation-district’.
The award will be given on 21 April, on the occasion of the Civil Services Day, at New Delhi by the prime minister.
The NALC is an initiative of Changlang DC Sunny K Singh. When he was posted as the additional deputy commissioner of Miao, he initiated it and also made it operational.
The NALC, which is the first of its kind in the state, is a state-of-the-art, futuristic and leisure learning space enabling people of all age groups to learn and improve every aspect of their personality. The sub-divisional library was transformed into the NALC with modern and modular designs.
The NALC now acts as a central library for all the nearby schools falling within a range of 500 mtrs, and library periods of these schools are held at the NALC.
It is open for children and members on all days and also late nights during exams. Local NGO SEED has been roped in to run it voluntarily. All activity-based learning is being conducted by the members of the SEED on a voluntary basis. This mentor NGO concept is helping to run the NALC, irrespective of change in the government officers.
Speaking to this daily, the DC credited the people of Miao for the success of the NALC.
“The community has been involved from the beginning to ensure that the whole initiative is owned by the community. Many people from the community donated building materials such as wooden logs, CGI sheets, cement bags, sand, etc, during construction of the NALC. In this way, community ownership has been ensured,” he said.
He added that the NALC’s main target is to help children from economically weaker sections who mainly study in government schools. “The NALC provides dedicated study rooms with round-the-clock power supply. Online study materials are also available for them. Hobby training classes such as photography, reading, music, video editing, quizzing, public speaking, painting, sketching, storytelling, poetry, etc, are also regularly conducted. Motivational movies and other informative documentaries are also screened. Most importantly, children get to read books of their choices at the NALC,” Singh said.
Further, the DC said that, under its corporate social responsibility initiative, Oil India Limited has agreed to run super 30 residential classes to promote preparation for competitive examinations like JEE and NEET at the NALC.
“The partnership with OIL will help to maintain and ensure smooth running of the NALC. Also, a committee has been constituted under the chairmanship of the Miao ADC, with principals and headmasters of nearby schools as members, to review the functioning of the NALC periodically,” the DC added.
Besides the students of Miao area, the students of Vijaynagar circle are also benefitting from the NALC.
Also, the NALC is acting as a fulcrum of ‘Project Safal’ of the district administration to improve the passing percentage of children in board examinations. The NALC space is used by students appearing for board examinations.
