Correspondent
HAFLONG, Aug 26: Demanding a degree college in Mahur, hundreds of students staged a sit-in demonstration at Mahur town, (25 km away from the district HQ Haflong) in Dima Hasao district on Tuesday.
Organized under the banner Indigenous Students Forums (ISF), Indigenous Women Forum (IWF) and the public of Mahur, the students also demand the introduction multi-stream facility (commerce and science) at the only higher secondary school of Mahur i.e Mahur Higher Secondary School and Tribal Medical College at Lasang.
A memorandum was also submitted to CM Dr. Himanta Biswa Sharma through the district administration, citing their grievances and requesting that they consider their demands for an early solution.
Mahur has only one higher secondary school i.e Mahur Higher Secondary, with only 60 seats capacity. Every year, over 300 applicants apply for the seats; however, due to a lack of seats, most of the left-out students are bound to quit their further studies as they couldn’t afford to study out of station and end up helping their parents in cultivation works, while some have gone out of station to work.
Most families could not send their children for further studies as they couldn’t afford rented houses out of Mahur, like Haflong or Maibang, for further studies since the Mahur region consists of 80-90% BPL families who hardly earn their bread by selling their farm produce.