The prefect system at ARPS Laitkor – as it was then….
It has been twenty five years since we left school in the spring of 1986 as the first batch. At the time of leaving I had been fortunate enough to have held the post of ‘School Captain’- the highest post in Mr MN Tankha’s prefectorial body. This is perhaps why my good friend Dr Rangam Rajkhowa has asked me to do this write up.
Since then the prefect body (I hear) had been abolished and then reinstated recently at ARPS. This shows that the concept of a Prefect system is up for debate. In this article, I will endeavour to look at the history of the prefect system in general, how the set up was run at ARPS in the 1980s,the pros and cons of the prefect system and in what form do we need the system to meet today’s challenges.
Background:
The prefectorial system has its origin in the English public schools. The Victorian public schools prime purpose were seen to instil ‘character’ amongst its students, however there was another tacit and unofficial purpose- to provide capable public servants to serve the British Empire which was then at its zenith. It is widely held that the stability, order, and good administration which has obtained both at home and
throughout the British Empire has been due in no small part to the excellent training in leadership and responsibility which the upper-class youth receives as a prefect in a Public School.
And thus so even after independence in 1947, the prefect system continued in the Indian public schools long after the British left Indian shores. It continued perhaps because a majority of people saw merits inherent in this system of grooming future citizens. Mr Tankha came to ARPS from St Paul’s school in Darjeeling – a public school in the great Victorian tradition. The prefectorial body at ARPS Laitkor was constituted right at the outset in 1980.
The prefect system at Laitkor
As I can recall, the prefect system consisted of a House prefect for each house (Mizoram, Arunachal, Nagaland, Manipur and later Holding Houses) with an additional School vice Captain and School Captain. In addition, each class had its own Class prefect. Thus below the teachers body there was a parallel institution of administration. This was quite like what I saw later in the Armed Forces- an Officer cadre and then a JCO cadre overseeing soldiers’ affairs but reporting to the Officers.
This prefect system then was perfectly in sync with the schools stated objective of providing future leaders for the Armed Forces primarily.
The prefectorial body met once a month with the Principal and House masters. This was the forum at which any prefect irrespective of his age and class could speak up. I distinctly remember Moji Riba (then a class IV prefect) making his point with aplomb at a meeting held in that wonderful library. This was democracy at its best and allowed the person to develop communication skills and confidence in public speaking. The minutiae of day to day working would be discussed at these meetings and responsibilities distributed to the prefects. For me personally, this stood me in good stead while attending the Commanding Officer’s meeting as a medical HOD [head of department]. I am sure my friends in the Armed Forces would back me on this one.
The House prefects had a slightly more onerous responsibility. In conjunction with the Housemaster they formed a management team for managing the affairs of the House. The house had students ranging from 10 year old to eighteen year old. Time keeping for various events [Like morning PT!] was an important job. A quaint terminology in use here was ‘chota haziri’- the morning cuppa at 530 am before PT. I never did find out what was ‘Bada haziri’. In the Army, the system is on its way out I believe but the Officer’s batman subserves the chota haziri function, especially in the field.
Looking back I think the house system was designed to develop loyalty and team work as well as a hierarchy of rank and privilege. Thus a junior boy would obey a senior and learn to be a follower first. As he grew up, he would be given responsibilities and if he proved himself, then rank and privilege would follow. The follower would then become a leader. The present always had strands of yesterday’s thought processes embedded and one only has to look at David Cameron’s Conservative party in the UK to see a sanitised, contemporary version of this theory in practice.
Often the House prefect and House master combine would become and administrative, judicial and legislative body. This made the prefects quite powerful but Mr Tankha ensured that prefects acted with self restraint and as ‘role models’. There may have been a few overzealous actions by the prefects [including me] but overall the system worked with a high degree of self restraint.
As prefects we learnt very early on how to handle responsibility and privileges. Once there was a series of scout lectures in the Meghalaya Hall on a Sunday afternoon. The whole school had to attend as usual. I and my friends (one is now an eminent doctor) went in initially but after an hour left to go out for a hike on this lovely summer’s day. Things went very well with us having fun and frolic in the nearby waterfall and ‘lal chai’ at the kong’s stall. But we ran into what today would be called a ‘killer app’ on our return –Mrs Tankha herself. Thankfully she was angry but stable. She had noticed us slipping away and we the School Captain and Vice Captain had bunked a mandatory proceeding of the school. She said ‘When you hold a position of responsibility, you have to lead by example and in this case you needed to show more patience and stay through the entirely dull proceedings’. What she told me that day has served me well since especially when I have to sit through a boring accountancy survey of the departmental finances or an eminent Neurologist talking about one obscure gene for Huntington’s disease he has discovered and named it after himself!!
The School Captains job was much more of an overarching responsibility for the administration of the prefectorial body and by extension the school. The point to be highlighted here was that I got every support from Principal and teachers. The lesson learnt again was that if a deserving person is given responsibility and space to perform, it often brings out the best in a person. Sadly due to a multitude of events, society especially in the UK has become a nanny state with ‘Big brother’ watching over your shoulder at each step. While this fosters fear and uniformity in service output, I certainly do not think that this is necessary great for development of leaders and ‘outliers’.
Did the Prefect system serve its purpose?
This prefect system was set up in the 1980s India. Remember this was the time when we watched the 1983 Cricket World cup finals [kind courtesy of Mrs Sen] on a black and white TV set with grainy pictures being beamed by Bangladesh TV. There were no mobile phones or email. If you wanted to speak urgently to someone in another city, you booked a ‘lightning call’-which took a couple of hours to materialise! This was India on the tail end of the failed Nehruvian dream. The sought after careers were Armed Forces, Civil service, Engineering and Medicine. The economic reforms of 1992 were still far away and GDP growth had not entered the vox populi’s lexicon.
So the success of the prefect system of that time should be judged by the social expectations of that period. Add to that the fact that 90% of children at Laitkor came from Armed Forces background [primarily non officer rank].
Against this, I think the system outperformed itself. Never has a school given so much to so many. It was able to transform the life of hundreds of families whose children found access to not only quality education but also a laboratory to hone their future team-working and leadership skills. I think the school has produced an impressive array of students doing well in diverse walks of life.
To have so many of our students in leadership positions both in India and abroad is creditable considering that the 1980s Northeast India was a backwater when it came to educational opportunities for the middle class.
While I do not have access to data about how our ex students are performing, Face book [though not the best place to get data] offers a good peak into how they are doing. An interesting fact noted by my wife Rashmi is that there are quite a few Laitkorians in off beat and artistic professions. Though the prefect system is designed to breed conformity, group loyalty and obedience to a certain degree, it would appear that there was sufficient latitude in the prefectorial system to provide space for creativity to flourish.
Should we retain the prefectorial system?
To answer this question, we need to know what are the requirements and challenges of 21 Century India.
India, China and Brazil are fast challenging the might of 500 years of Western dominance. The future is a multipolar world with these three countries jockeying for placement amongst the world’s elite.
The challenges of twenty first century are complex. Most tasks would require people to work closely together in groups without losing their individuality. This means we need people capable of collaboration. One would need to break down artificial ‘turf’ boundaries which arise in any organisation to foster closer cooperation especially in mega corporations.
An important challenge for tomorrow’s leaders would be aligning a multicultural, multinational workforce towards organisational objectives. This would be true in research or in industry (eg Indra Nooyi CEO of Pepsico).
We are heading towards a leader who strives to provide individual empowerment. On a visit to a spinal cord implant manufacturer in Europe recently, the person in charge of quality control said that he personally feels responsible for each implant because if they work well then that is one person less in this world with debilitating pain. With people like this on your assembly line quality control only needs to be ‘light touch’
Apart from the above, a national requirement is to have a substantial body of people who can provide ‘clean governance’. Also we need our current national institutions to work towards eradicating social inequality. Remember we are only as strong as our weakest link.
For the Armed Forces, Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat had piloted the ‘techno warrior’ project. Though it has fallen into disfavour, I see future Officer cadre of the Armed Forces having much more specialist knowledge than at present. The world is becoming increasingly complex and a higher level of specialist knowledge is necessary.
The prefect system in the 21 century would need to be modified to incorporate these objectives of society. How this is to be done is best left to the education experts.
Conclusion
The prefectorial system at ARPS Laitkor was singularly successful in meeting the expectation of society at that time. However, the needs of society has changed quite a bit in the intervening years and the new system should be designed to meet the challenges of 21 century India.
It has been twenty five years since we left school in the spring of 1986 as the first batch. At the time of leaving I had been fortunate enough to have held the post of ‘School Captain’- the highest post in Mr MN Tankha’s prefectorial body. This is perhaps why my good friend Dr Rangam Rajkhowa has asked me to do this write up.
Since then the prefect body (I hear) had been abolished and then reinstated recently at ARPS. This shows that the concept of a Prefect system is up for debate. In this article, I will endeavour to look at the history of the prefect system in general, how the set up was run at ARPS in the 1980s,the pros and cons of the prefect system and in what form do we need the system to meet today’s challenges.
Background:
The prefectorial system has its origin in the English public schools. The Victorian public schools prime purpose were seen to instil ‘character’ amongst its students, however there was another tacit and unofficial purpose- to provide capable public servants to serve the British Empire which was then at its zenith. It is widely held that the stability, order, and good administration which has obtained both at home and
throughout the British Empire has been due in no small part to the excellent training in leadership and responsibility which the upper-class youth receives as a prefect in a Public School.
And thus so even after independence in 1947, the prefect system continued in the Indian public schools long after the British left Indian shores. It continued perhaps because a majority of people saw merits inherent in this system of grooming future citizens. Mr Tankha came to ARPS from St Paul’s school in Darjeeling – a public school in the great Victorian tradition. The prefectorial body at ARPS Laitkor was constituted right at the outset in 1980.
The prefect system at Laitkor
As I can recall, the prefect system consisted of a House prefect for each house (Mizoram, Arunachal, Nagaland, Manipur and later Holding Houses) with an additional School vice Captain and School Captain. In addition, each class had its own Class prefect. Thus below the teachers body there was a parallel institution of administration. This was quite like what I saw later in the Armed Forces- an Officer cadre and then a JCO cadre overseeing soldiers’ affairs but reporting to the Officers.
This prefect system then was perfectly in sync with the schools stated objective of providing future leaders for the Armed Forces primarily.
The prefectorial body met once a month with the Principal and House masters. This was the forum at which any prefect irrespective of his age and class could speak up. I distinctly remember Moji Riba (then a class IV prefect) making his point with aplomb at a meeting held in that wonderful library. This was democracy at its best and allowed the person to develop communication skills and confidence in public speaking. The minutiae of day to day working would be discussed at these meetings and responsibilities distributed to the prefects. For me personally, this stood me in good stead while attending the Commanding Officer’s meeting as a medical HOD [head of department]. I am sure my friends in the Armed Forces would back me on this one.
The House prefects had a slightly more onerous responsibility. In conjunction with the Housemaster they formed a management team for managing the affairs of the House. The house had students ranging from 10 year old to eighteen year old. Time keeping for various events [Like morning PT!] was an important job. A quaint terminology in use here was ‘chota haziri’- the morning cuppa at 530 am before PT. I never did find out what was ‘Bada haziri’. In the Army, the system is on its way out I believe but the Officer’s batman subserves the chota haziri function, especially in the field.
Looking back I think the house system was designed to develop loyalty and team work as well as a hierarchy of rank and privilege. Thus a junior boy would obey a senior and learn to be a follower first. As he grew up, he would be given responsibilities and if he proved himself, then rank and privilege would follow. The follower would then become a leader. The present always had strands of yesterday’s thought processes embedded and one only has to look at David Cameron’s Conservative party in the UK to see a sanitised, contemporary version of this theory in practice.
Often the House prefect and House master combine would become and administrative, judicial and legislative body. This made the prefects quite powerful but Mr Tankha ensured that prefects acted with self restraint and as ‘role models’. There may have been a few overzealous actions by the prefects [including me] but overall the system worked with a high degree of self restraint.
As prefects we learnt very early on how to handle responsibility and privileges. Once there was a series of scout lectures in the Meghalaya Hall on a Sunday afternoon. The whole school had to attend as usual. I and my friends (one is now an eminent doctor) went in initially but after an hour left to go out for a hike on this lovely summer’s day. Things went very well with us having fun and frolic in the nearby waterfall and ‘lal chai’ at the kong’s stall. But we ran into what today would be called a ‘killer app’ on our return –Mrs Tankha herself. Thankfully she was angry but stable. She had noticed us slipping away and we the School Captain and Vice Captain had bunked a mandatory proceeding of the school. She said ‘When you hold a position of responsibility, you have to lead by example and in this case you needed to show more patience and stay through the entirely dull proceedings’. What she told me that day has served me well since especially when I have to sit through a boring accountancy survey of the departmental finances or an eminent Neurologist talking about one obscure gene for Huntington’s disease he has discovered and named it after himself!!
The School Captains job was much more of an overarching responsibility for the administration of the prefectorial body and by extension the school. The point to be highlighted here was that I got every support from Principal and teachers. The lesson learnt again was that if a deserving person is given responsibility and space to perform, it often brings out the best in a person. Sadly due to a multitude of events, society especially in the UK has become a nanny state with ‘Big brother’ watching over your shoulder at each step. While this fosters fear and uniformity in service output, I certainly do not think that this is necessary great for development of leaders and ‘outliers’.
Did the Prefect system serve its purpose?
This prefect system was set up in the 1980s India. Remember this was the time when we watched the 1983 Cricket World cup finals [kind courtesy of Mrs Sen] on a black and white TV set with grainy pictures being beamed by Bangladesh TV. There were no mobile phones or email. If you wanted to speak urgently to someone in another city, you booked a ‘lightning call’-which took a couple of hours to materialise! This was India on the tail end of the failed Nehruvian dream. The sought after careers were Armed Forces, Civil service, Engineering and Medicine. The economic reforms of 1992 were still far away and GDP growth had not entered the vox populi’s lexicon.
So the success of the prefect system of that time should be judged by the social expectations of that period. Add to that the fact that 90% of children at Laitkor came from Armed Forces background [primarily non officer rank].
Against this, I think the system outperformed itself. Never has a school given so much to so many. It was able to transform the life of hundreds of families whose children found access to not only quality education but also a laboratory to hone their future team-working and leadership skills. I think the school has produced an impressive array of students doing well in diverse walks of life.
To have so many of our students in leadership positions both in India and abroad is creditable considering that the 1980s Northeast India was a backwater when it came to educational opportunities for the middle class.
While I do not have access to data about how our ex students are performing, Face book [though not the best place to get data] offers a good peak into how they are doing. An interesting fact noted by my wife Rashmi is that there are quite a few Laitkorians in off beat and artistic professions. Though the prefect system is designed to breed conformity, group loyalty and obedience to a certain degree, it would appear that there was sufficient latitude in the prefectorial system to provide space for creativity to flourish.
Should we retain the prefectorial system?
To answer this question, we need to know what are the requirements and challenges of 21 Century India.
India, China and Brazil are fast challenging the might of 500 years of Western dominance. The future is a multipolar world with these three countries jockeying for placement amongst the world’s elite.
The challenges of twenty first century are complex. Most tasks would require people to work closely together in groups without losing their individuality. This means we need people capable of collaboration. One would need to break down artificial ‘turf’ boundaries which arise in any organisation to foster closer cooperation especially in mega corporations.
An important challenge for tomorrow’s leaders would be aligning a multicultural, multinational workforce towards organisational objectives. This would be true in research or in industry (eg Indra Nooyi CEO of Pepsico).
We are heading towards a leader who strives to provide individual empowerment. On a visit to a spinal cord implant manufacturer in Europe recently, the person in charge of quality control said that he personally feels responsible for each implant because if they work well then that is one person less in this world with debilitating pain. With people like this on your assembly line quality control only needs to be ‘light touch’
Apart from the above, a national requirement is to have a substantial body of people who can provide ‘clean governance’. Also we need our current national institutions to work towards eradicating social inequality. Remember we are only as strong as our weakest link.
For the Armed Forces, Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat had piloted the ‘techno warrior’ project. Though it has fallen into disfavour, I see future Officer cadre of the Armed Forces having much more specialist knowledge than at present. The world is becoming increasingly complex and a higher level of specialist knowledge is necessary.
The prefect system in the 21 century would need to be modified to incorporate these objectives of society. How this is to be done is best left to the education experts.
Conclusion
The prefectorial system at ARPS Laitkor was singularly successful in meeting the expectation of society at that time. However, the needs of society has changed quite a bit in the intervening years and the new system should be designed to meet the challenges of 21 century India.
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