Nagaland has climbed to become India's third most literate state, recording a literacy rate of 95.7 per cent, according to an announcement made by Advisor for School Education and SCERT Dr Kekhrielhoulie Yhome at the state-level Teachers' Day celebration held at the local ground in Kohima on Saturday.
A Dramatic Rise Since Statehood
Yhome told the gathering that Nagaland's literacy rate stood at just 21.95 per cent when the state was formed in 1963, a figure that placed it among the least literate regions in the entire country at the time. More than six decades later, the state has reached a literacy rate of 95.7 per cent, a level that now puts it behind only Kerala and Mizoram nationally. He described the transformation as a major accomplishment for what he called a relatively young society, one that would not have been possible without the sustained effort of successive generations of teachers.
Crediting Nagaland's Teachers
Yhome thanked teachers for shaping the lives of students and for imparting values and lessons that stay with them well beyond their school years. He pointed out that Nagaland currently has 32,714 teachers serving across government and private schools in the state, and said their contribution was especially significant given the difficult terrain and challenging working conditions many of them face in their daily work. Calling teaching one of the most noble professions, he said teachers frequently show their students the same affection, concern and commitment that they would show their own children.
Three Priorities for the Road Ahead
Yhome said the state government is now working to transform the broader school education system by concentrating on three major areas: infrastructure, human resources and curriculum. He acknowledged that inadequate infrastructure remains a persistent problem across both government-run and private schools in Nagaland. In some schools, he said, even basic facilities such as toilets are still unavailable, a gap that creates particular difficulties for girl students. The government, he added, intends to close these gaps gradually through a series of development projects.
Better Training and Governance for Teachers
The second area of focus, Yhome said, will be strengthening human resources through improved teacher training, better management of personnel, and stronger coordination between individual schools and field offices. Alongside this, the government also plans to improve overall administration and governance in the education system, while introducing greater personalisation for students through a stronger school feeder system that better tracks and supports them as they move through the system.
Rebuilding the Curriculum for a New Generation
The third pillar, which Yhome described as perhaps the most crucial of the three, involves redesigning the curriculum itself and adopting more innovative teaching approaches, with the goal of building a world-class education system capable of meeting future challenges. He said the education system must keep adapting to prepare Generation Z, Generation Alpha and the generations that follow them for a rapidly changing world, placing greater emphasis on equipping students with the skills they will need in the 21st century.
