Temsumongla Jamir currently serves as an Assistant Teacher at Government Higher Secondary School, Mon town. She is a recipient of the State Teachers’ Award 2022
Having completed her 10th standard from Golaghat Mission Girls’ School, Assam, Jamir went on to complete her Pre-university at Handique Girls’ College, Guwahati. But soon returned to Dimapur due to agitations in Assam and went on to pursue a degree in Science at Dimapur Government College.
Temsumongla Jamir first started working at Totokchingnyu Government Middle School in the year 1989 in her early 20s. Having grown up in Jorhat, the language barrier posed as a hurdle in the teaching-learning process given that her students only spoke the native dialect and did not speak English or Nagamese. She however, addressed this quickly by switching roles and taking tuitions from her own students which helped her learn basic communication in the language the students could understand. After three and a half years, she was transferred to GHSS, Mon town as Assistant Teacher and continues serving here even today.
Jamir narrates, “when I got the first appointment order, my father asked me if I was going to work faithfully to which I replied yes.” It was her father’s advice to be sincere.
This, she says reminded her to continue on in her journey as a teacher in a place she was foreign to. Early on in her career working as a teacher in Mon, there were no teachers’ quarters, so she rented a home 12 Kilometres away from the school and would have to ride the bus and at time even hitchhiking trucks to reach the school. Eventually, at her request, the village arranged a place for her to stay for a few months, where she picked up more of the local dialect.
Jamir proudly declares that her biggest achievement is seeing her students going towards new horizons and besides her own children, when she sees the Konyak people going forward; she looks on with pride.
With over three decades of working as an educator among the Konyaks, many of her former students are now her colleagues. She encourages her students to give competitive exams and to erase the ‘backward’ tag.
On being queried about what she wants to see change in the educational system, she reflects on the importance of good grammar, she adds, “It is a stepping stone for a person’s life. In the 21st Century, the syllabus should be equivalent to other states and countries in order to cope with the environment.”
