For decades together, the Meghalaya Board of School Education (MBOSE) results have shown that only less than 50% of those who sit for their Senior School Leaving Certificate (SSLC)examinations (previously known as the High School Leaving Certificate (HSLC) examination )manage to clear their examinations. The rest 50% drop out and only very few make a second attempt to rewrite their exams. There are schools in Garo Hills where not a single student has managed to pass the SSLC examination till date. These are very troubling statistics but the Government is hardly concerned about assessing what’s wrong with the teaching method (pedagogy). All the blame is apportioned to the students while teachers get away and continue to draw their salaries without being assessed as to whether they are actually capable of teaching.
The Legislative Assembly was just apprised that there are one lakh school drop outs in the state in the last five years. The motion was raised by an MLA from the Treasury bench without citing the source for the data given. If the legislators care to read the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) produced year after year they would be able to pin-point the areas that need urgent remedial action. The Report for 2016 says about 65 % of children studying in Classes III-V can only read Class I level books. Only 34% of students in Classes III-V can do subtraction. Students studying in Classes VI-VIII are only able to read Class II text books and only 19.4% of students of this age group can do division. The trends over the years show that Mathematics learning is on a downward trend. The ASER study reveals that there is shortage of 29.44% teachers for teaching Mathematics and Science at the Primary level and 41.56% at the Upper Primary School. With this kind of frightening statistics the Education Department should be put in the docks and asked as to whether the per capita investment in Education over the decades has yielded any results and whether the teachers’ salaries are commensurate to the educational outcomes. It is pathetic that the issue of raising the educational standards of students in Meghalaya has never featured in the electoral manifesto of any political party till date. And we dare call Meghalaya the educational hub of the North East? Will things be any different in 2018?