By Benjamin Lyngdoh
The day of reckoning hath come and gone. For most it is a time of enormous joy with a first major stepping stone being taken. The path ahead has become clearer and more promising on counts of career planning. It is beyond doubt that the class X result is the ‘mother of all results’ in the life of any student; no other result henceforth will ever be able to give as much joy as this one. Hence, at the outset I would like to congratulate all the winners and encourage all those who shall be giving another try next year. Coming to the crux of the matter, as significant as the role of MBOSE is in shaping the future of our state, its shortcomings and challenges becomes a pinching concern. The sad fact is that these concerns are not new; we have been grappling with them for some time now. In time it’s mutating into a chronic cancer. However, currently there is a new policy effort (Draft of Meghalaya State Education Policy) towards reversing this trend and thus, this revisit into the age old issues. Accordingly, I place the following pointers –
Firstly, the class X results this term present a regular trend but also a disturbed reading. The pass percentage overall is 56.76% with girls at 58.12% and boys at 55.14%. In the case of regular candidates alone, the pass percentage is an impressive 83.89% with the boys performing slightly better than the girls with 84.49% and 83.41% respectively. Interestingly in the case of scheduled tribe candidates alone, the pass percentage is better for the girls as against the boys with 56.63% and 53.21% respectively. Hence, in the overall pass percentage distribution of girls and boys, once again the girls have fared better. Metaphorically speaking, it’s kudos to matrilineal Meghalaya and on hindsight it’s time for the boys to wake up. However, the disturbing reading is the district-wise pass percentages. Ironically, this is not a new phenomenon. The Garo Hills districts have fared very poorly with a combined pass percentage of 34.47%. In particular, South Garo Hills and South West Garo hills scored a meager 29.98% and 26.65% respectively. This is a very poor return when compared to the other districts where they have a combined pass percentage of 76.27% with the highest being East Khasi Hills with 79.04%. This lopsided pass percentage represents a serious developmental problem for our state. Having such a skewed educational profile is nothing to be proud of; rather it is a dire concern which can lead to more rounds of discontent revolving around disillusionment and ultimately percolation into social problems. Needless to say, there is a need to reverse this trend. The starting point here is to conduct a comprehensive study to deeply understand the underlying reasons for this phenomenon thereby contributing towards formulation and implementation of effective redressal measures.
Secondly, and flowing from the above; education in Meghalaya suffers from the issues of rural-urban disparity, uneven spread of teachers, drop-out of students to name a few. These are chronic problems that need mitigation. Meghalaya is a composite picture of 11 districts and not just one district. One district alone cannot stand to represent the socio-economic and educational demographics of a state. Currently, we as a state fit the analogy of a lopsided truck with an uninterested/indifferent governance. This truck is going to topple over anytime soon. Do we have checks and balances for this? Coming to the three parameters pointed above, there exists a positive correlation amongst them. Our schools in the rural areas just do not stand a chance to compete with the urban schools. They struggle with the limitations of infrastructural and basic amenities, equipments, number of teachers and so forth. The outcome of all this is high drop-out rates. As such, school drop-out is not primarily only an educational problem; rather it is more of a social problem. In general, students do not see the point of education as far as their careers are concerned. Couple that with poverty and family guidance towards the students and the outcome is dropping out of school. Hence, this issue will have to be addressed through a sociological approach and not an educational approach alone. To start with the government may allot a special corpus from the annual education budget towards mitigating rural-urban disparity and uneven spread of teachers.
Thirdly, the macro aspect of MBOSE surfaces primarily through two important issues – accessibility and quality. This is a perennial issue where threadbare deliberations can continue unabated. The critical factor here is that accessibility and quality are the two opposite sides of a spectrum. Hence, finding a common ground is never easy as this would imply a trade-off between the two. As such, the general argument goes that ‘you can either have accessibility or quality but not both’. So here lies the challenge. Can we have both?’ This is a paradox but built upon the accepted truth that school education is the bedrock of a students’ life and hence must be accessible to all. But what about quality? One might argue that in the state of employment crunch that we are in now quality has become even more important than accessibility. Now, in simple socio-economic terms it is indeed easy to conceptualize quality. That would imply ‘a student who is productive to society while upholding ethical social values’. Are we doing that now? In general, in most quarters here in Meghalaya we still evaluate an individual’s ability to speak English as a measure of quality. However, this is an unfair evaluation as quality is a holistic representation of a student. Quality encompasses language and numerals, etiquette and aptitude. In fact to be blunt, numerals and aptitude count much more than language when it comes to competitive examination based career planning. This is the qualitative challenge we face while continuing to focus on accessibility.
Fourthly, in keeping with argument for quality within accessibility; MBOSE is a ‘social entrepreneur’. Its orientation and functionality is akin to such. In the true sense of the term, Meghalaya needs more social entrepreneurs for social transformation based upon economic development. As such, this may just help us catch up with the GDP growth rates of the rest of the country. In the specific context of education, the government needs to revisit and reengineer the vision, mission and goals of MBOSE. As education is a key social sector (along with health); the instilling of social perceptions into its operations and outlook can only result in effective outcomes. Here, the ‘teaching-learning factor’ becomes the driving force for all other decisions. It is primary and not subsidiary and everything revolves around it. The government would have to invest and not disinvest on education (and health). This would mean less focus on profits and earnings for the publishers at the cost of student interest. The recent errors/mistakes recorded in text books is an indication of such. We cannot afford to have such a lackadaisical approach towards our text books. Till the time our publishers are able to scale up, it would be better to for other avenues. To this end, the adoption of NCERT text books for classes XI from the ensuing academic session is a long awaited welcome step. This is what a social entrepreneur precisely does; focus on social benefits even if that be at an economic cost/loss. Subsequently, in the long-run we shall experience tangible transformational outcomes.
Lastly, the Draft of Meghalaya State Education Policy is in the public domain calling for suggestions. Let us all play a role in improving education of our state by contributing towards it. For future reference, it is better if the education policy is formulated and applied in tandem with the health policy; for education and health together are the real hallmarks of human resource development. This is because it is useless for a person to be healthy but uneducated and vice versa. Either way, he/she is ineffective to society. Ideally, a citizen as a human resource must have the best of both.
(The Author teaches at NEHU)