By Louis Pyngrope
In Meghalaya education should be the top priority of the Government. Education should also be listed in the manifestos of all political parties in our state. This is important for the upliftment of our citizens. Such manifesto should be strictly implemented after the formation of the government. This focus on education will help address the areas we are lagging behind in. An educated electorate will also be helpful to politics and governance because they will not demand personal benefits as they are doing today but will demand responsive and transparent governance.
It is important to understand that the rise in unemployment is mainly due to the newly adopted policy of our government to reduce expenditures in salary payments to its employees. The non-payment of salaries to teachers, non- implementation of pension schemes for retired teachers and the non- availability of technical educational institutions to produce human resource and experts with technical know-how to run industries or companies required for the scientific and technical development in our state also contribute to unemployment to a large extent.
Poor standard of education is the main factor contributing to the backwardness of Meghalaya. In the recent past, an organisation published its findings on the status of education in our state. We were shocked to learn that Meghalaya fares worst in education when compared with other states of India.
Whatever has happened in our state is totally our fault as we have never bothered to check the erosion of education through sheer negligence of past governments. Hence large sections of people live in ignorance without any awareness on educational and other matters as it is not a top priority of the state. Holistic education provides all round knowledge such as on health, cleanliness, ability to make informed decisions, questioning the government amongst others. An uneducated, uninformed electorate will not demand policies in economics, agriculture, environment, education, mining etc., and nor will it push for necessary reforms. The continued neglect of education has led to backwardness in almost all spheres of activities. As of now, we are at the bottom of the list in education as per the recent publication of NITI Aayog and henceforth we will be lagging behind even more in different spheres of development in our state.
Recently NITI Aayog’s published its first Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) report which found Meghalaya to be the fifth poorest state in the region and the poorest in India. That was followed by the Swacch Bharat report which found Shillong to be the dirtiest city in India which many find highly controversial and objectionable. All of these arise from the non -inclusion of education as a priority in our state. What we must do now is to convince the political parties to start afresh and focus on the real idea of development by coming up with an education policy and educational reforms as the top priority in their election manifestos and the public must hold them on to this promise after government formation.
We have seen the dismal performance of all political parties whether national or regional parties. They have no concern for the uplift of the state. Recently, a new political party “The Voice of People Party” (VoPP) was launched by Ardent M Basaiawmoit, our ex MLA from Nongkrem Constituency with the intention of winning the next elections and forming the government in 2023. Basaiawmoit criticised the present government for its non-performance. Of course this was rebutted by the Dy. Chief Minister, Prestone Tynsong.
I respect the idea of a revolution as suggested by Ardent Basaiawmoit but from past experiences there are doubts if such an ambition can be realised without hiring a political strategist and tactician like Prashant Kishor who has proved his mettle in the West Bengal election where the Trinamool Congress won against the BJP. The same person has used his valuable strategies and tactics in Goa, Tamil Nadu etc. It is important for this newly created party to adopt the same strategy to win the elections in 2023. But the VoPP needs to find another strategist as Kishor is already working for the Trinamool Congress which is currently the opposition party in the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly.
Its high time for the VoPP to be highly professional by appointing expert political strategists like Prashant Kishor to fight the current brand of politics in our state. Hence it is important to raise funds to meet the expenditure in hiring such experts. If such appointments are made, it is more or less certain that the Education policy, Social and Economic policy, Mining Policy, Environment policy, Agriculture policy, etc. will be properly framed with provision for reforms to be introduced as and when needed and put it place in our state. In this way long pending problems can be solved permanently and the citizen of Meghalaya can ultimately live in peace and harmony.
Public memory is short and politicians know this well. The large majority of our people are silent on most issues and even MLAs are not educated enough to understand the consequence of the interstate border problems. Now our elected MLAs and ministers have accepted the ‘give and take’ policy although they know that our state will be the loser as we have never encroached on even a tiny portion of land belonging to other states/country. The Chief Minister of Assam understands the inferior intellectual capacity of our ministers so he took this opportunity to lay down terms of reference for constituting committees from both state governments which was gracefully accepted by our Chief Minister in the interests of the people of Assam. The short term memory of our people has contributed to the daring attitude of the ministers of this government to take decisions at random without thinking of future consequences, thereby reducing the people of the state to scapegoats. But our people have become wiser now and I strongly believe they will jog their memories in the assembly elections in 2023.
There is still time to convince the voters of Meghalaya on the need for a single regional political party to rule the state. Such a party will hopefully take decisions that are favourable for Khasis, Jaintias and Garos, hence there will be no cause for disaffection among them. This will also serve as a good lesson for all the existing regional political parties who repeatedly commit to unite before every election but without any fruitful result. This is because voters elect the wrong people who are power hungry. We strongly believe that if serious appeals are made to all the citizens, our dreams will materialise when people with intellectual capacity lead the state. Then we will have no fear of any new/existing policies being enacted which are in conflict with central government policies like ILP, CAA, etc.
It is an undeniable fact that many projects executed in our state have resulted in large scale corruption. The hydel power projects, drinking water projects, permission for setting up coke factories, etc., have all led to crisis of confidence in the government. If these are left unchecked the state will dip even lower on socio-economic indicators.
Education reforms are much needed right from the primary and upper primary levels. Students should be taught the importance of a healthy lifestyle and awareness on drug addiction and its preventive measures. Sex education should also be taught to students at the high school level. Also, it is important to teach the basics of law and the Constitution from the time they enter high school.
An example of poor legal knowledge is the non-availability of forensic evidences in the recent judicial inquiry on the August 13 alleged killing of Cherister Thangkhiew by the police at Mawlai Kynton Massar. All this happened because the society at large was not aware that a crime scene should be immediately sealed off for collecting evidence. But people moved freely at the crime scene. Even the policemen entered the crime scene and bore the walls of the room apparently to get out a bullet lodged in the wall. This is equivalent to destruction of forensic evidenceCo which was required to be placed by the Government for the judicial inquiry.
If students en-masse are armed with some knowledge of the law, it will be difficult for anyone or any organisation to cheat or brainwash them. Hence it is critical to revamp the whole education policy of our state with provision for reforms to make our citizens ready to face new challenges.