Shillong, May 27: Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma today called education a “complicated and sticky subject” as he explained why Meghalaya’s Performance Grading Index (PGI) ranking is among the worst in the country.
He blamed the state’s high number of registered schools, often four in one building, for dragging down averages.
“Technically they should be just one school, but they have their own UDISE (Unified District Information System for Education) number and are assessed separately,” Sangma said. “Each one’s performance adds up to the state average, which brings down our numbers.”
This has been an issue flagged by the government before. Meghalaya has roughly three times as many schools on paper as Manipur even though the states have about the same population. Here, essentially one institution might be split up formally into lower primary, upper primary, secondary and higher secondary schools in order to gain access to different benefits offered. The Meghalaya government is in the process of rationalising such schools.
The CM also said that reforms like structured teacher pay were aimed directly at improving PGI scores. He pointed to recent gains, such as SSLC pass percentages up and the dropout rate falling to 6 per cent, which is below the national average.
“Earlier, 50 per cent of our SSLC students failed, so they couldn’t reach Class 12. That impacted PGI rankings. There are points for everything,” he said.
Sangma urged patience, saying results take time. “I urge you to please wait for the 2025-26 assessment coming out in June-July. I’m very hopeful our numbers will go up.”
He said the impact of the last 3-4 years of work should start showing in the 2025-26 PGI rankings, with full results in 5-6 years. “Education is such a subject where decisions don’t show impact immediately. It takes time.”
The CM said he explained this to Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan in a recent meeting that focused heavily on PGI rankings, North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU) and higher education.
A central team will visit Meghalaya this month or early next to review the state’s education work and see how Delhi can assist. Language issues in CBSE and technical education were also discussed, he added.
“We are working on it. We are aware. It’s not that we’ve just woken up,” Sangma said. “We are very confident that the steps taken will have an impact.”
