Celebrating Nagaland: A Chronicle of the 5 Cs

In 2022, Nagaland Reading Festival (NRF) became our first ever program in north-east India and a window to yet another Indian educational landscape. Since then, the state and our programs there have provided us innumerous learnings. In this blog, we summarise them as the 5 Cs of Nagaland: celebration, creativity, community, commitment and champion.

Celebration

We know Nagaland as a land of festivals, each celebrating a different aspect of life, traditions, communities. This reflected in our first ever program being a festival to nurture love for reading in children.

It was also a celebration of teachers and school leaders for their efforts in inculcating love for reading in children. At the state level award ceremony of the Nagaland Reading Festival, 15 teachers and school leaders were felicitated by the Nagaland School Advisor, Dr. Kekhrielhoulie Yhome. Rarely had we seen a state ceremony full of senior IAS officers and ministers, celebrating teachers and school leaders with so much fun and enthusiasm (Zumba and Rap, you see). We learnt that the celebration with dance and singing is innate in their culture as well, and rightly so.

Winners of Nagaland Reading Festival

Invitation to the State Award Ceremony

Creativity

We have seen for ourselves how proximity to nature and diversity leads to ideas. We found this to be true for Nagaland as well. Home to 17 major tribes and many other sub-tribes, the state’s music, dances, cuisines, fabrics, ornaments, handicrafts, all their work all have a sense of creative expression and originality infused in them.

Vinay in a traditional tribal attire

Bamboo containers to store grains in a house in Zapami

In NRF too, the teachers and school leaders came up with contextual and innovative ideas. There were reading games, flashcards, and drawings/pictures to tell a story among many others. Not just teachers and school leaders, the state team came up with a logo— representing Naga children— for the initiative.

Nagaland Reading Festival logo

Community:

Nagaland is also a testament to different communities accepting each other. We had the privilege to visit and spend an entire day in a traditional Nagaland village Zapami, nestled in the valley, surrounded by hills with green rooftops, wooden houses. We saw how it is very normal to extend a helping hand to anyone in the village, even before asked. This includes chores such as filling the water for your neighbours before they are back from fields and even building homes. we “felt” the community there, until then we had only intellectualised the concept.

This was reflected in NRF where teachers and school leaders supported each other in planning, conducting, and recording activities. Collaboration and community is a powerful force, and it was instrumental in making the festival a success. Also, these innovations are available on DIKSHA and accessible to the entire education community across the country. This led to outcomes not just in Nagaland, but will encourage innovations across the country. Only a community working, learning, improving together can achieve this.

Entrance to the Zapami village

Aerial view of Zapami village

Commitment

We saw people of Nagaland committed to each other, its culture, and its identity. The state is nestled in the Himalayas, and faces many challenges due to its topography. But it turns these challenges into opportunities for growth and development. This same commitment was evident in the launch of the Nagaland Reading Festival by the Hon’ble Chief Minister. The festival was a reflection of the state’s and the team’s commitment to quality education, innovation in education, and the building a love of reading among students.

Classroom painted by community members

Mid-day meal shed built by community members

We also witnessed this commitment of the community in the schools we visited. The quote “it takes a village to raise a child” has truly come alive in these schools. Tasks like getting wood to build a shed-like space where children can sit and eat their mid-day meals and painting the classroom walls to make them print-rich and attractive were undertaken by community members. They were equal owners in ensuring access to education to their children.

Champion

Lastly, all the attributes that we talked about make Nagaland a champion. A champion of unity in diversity, a champion of pioneering celebration of life and diversity. It is a champion of using micro-improvements approach for teachers and school leaders. Teachers and school leaders undertook small +1 changes to what they are already doing, and look what that led to, 1094 micro-improvements were initiated and we know that there were many more.

The national festival of innovations launched by NCERT in Sep 2022, called Vidya Amrit Mahotsav was born out of the imagination of NRF.

Meeting with DoSE member, Commissioner, Education, School Advisor, Nagaland, Principal Director, DoSE, State Mission Director, Samagra Shiksha and Vinay and Shruti (from left)

At ShikshaLokam, we get to interact with different Education bureaucrats, administrators and all the other intermediary leaders. Nagaland was different for us, for the first time in our experience we got to spend more than an hour with the School Advisor, Dr. Kekhrielhoulie Yhome, and all the other IAS officers in the education space in one room. It was exhilarating to see them share their visions for Naga Children, their understanding of the challenges and also possible solutions. In all aspects they are championing “Quality Education for all Naga Children”. We are privileged that we were a part of those discussions and we get to work with them.

Nagaland Reading Festival has been an experience full of learning, thinking out of the box, improving, and celebrating. It has celebrated small changes that are impactful, inspiring teachers and school leaders to initiate small yet significant improvements in their classrooms. The act of continuous improvement is an act of leadership. And the state continues to champion this leadership, even after the NRF.

Meet the Author

Vinay R Sanjivi

With a perennial quest to find out what is 'truth', what is 'right' and what is 'beautiful', Vinay would like to 'do', 'whatever' that requires and travel 'wherever' is required, to 'know' and to 'be'. Vinay currently heads the Programmatic efforts at Shikshalokam to empower Education Leadership to create a learning conducive atmosphere to every child in the country. He is a proud alumnus of Azim Premji University, Teach For India, Goldman Sachs and Andhra Pradesh Social Empowerment Fellowship. He would love to retire as a Teaching School Leader.

Vinay R Sanjivi

Shruti Fauzdar

Shruti started her journey in the field of education with Teach for India Fellowship and currently works in the Programs team at ShikshaLokam, designing scale interventions and solutions. Like many of us at ShikshaLokam, she is a fellow believer in children's right to meaningful learning experiences. When not at work, you will find her travelling to historical places or chilling at a monument.