It was the best of times, it was the worst of times – that sums up what the government and the opposition think of the state of education in Meghalaya at the moment.
On Tuesday in the Assembly, Education Minister Lahkmen Rymbui defended his department’s performance in the sector while numerous other MLAs criticised actual or perceived failings of the system.
The issue returned to the legislature today with Mawsynram MLA and opposition member Himalaya Shangpliang grilling Rymbui over school infrastructure.
Moving a call attention notice regarding reports published in a local newspaper, Shangpliang lamented that the state ranks so poorly in the performance grading index (PGI). According to this measure of states and Union territories, Meghalaya’s education system is the second-worst in the country, ahead of only Ladakh.
The problems that plague the system are wide ranging, from high dropout rates (nearly 45 per cent in South West Garo Hills), to poor school infrastructure and absent teachers.
Quoting a local paper, Shangpliang said a teacher in a village in Garo Hills has not attended schools in the last three years but has continued to draw a salary. It was at this moment that the minister was laughing, which earned a strong rebuke from Shangpliang.
In his response, Rymbui said that the state has made remarkable improvement in several educational indicators.
As far as the PGI scores go, he said that in 2017-18 Meghalaya scored 584, rising to 610 in 2018-19 and 649 in 2019-20 and Rymbui predicted that Meghalaya would cross 700 in the next rankings. However, even this jump would still leave it as one of the worst performing states in the country, going by the data available on the PGI website.
Informing that more than 1,000 schools will be renovated, he also said that the state government will provide funds for the renovation of no fewer than 80 per cent of government schools.
