SHILLONG, July 21: Education Minister Lahkmen Rymbui on Thursday said the low ranking of the state in the report of the Performance, Infrastructure and Equity (PIE) Index 2020-21 is not totally untrue.
He told reporters the NPP-led Meghalaya Democratic Alliance government had realised after assuming office in 2018 that the improvement of the education system should be based on three pillars — quality teachers, trained teachers and proper infrastructure.
“The government primary schools across the state were in a bad shape. How could the government go for online teaching or digital classrooms when there were no rooms or doors?” Rymbui said.
This was the reason the government invested heavily to improve the infrastructure of the government LP schools in the past three years, he said.
“We are targeting to improve 1,800 LP school buildings across the state,” he added.
Meghalaya has been ranked the lowest in the PIE Index in primary and secondary education for the second straight time. Observer Research Foundation, a think-tank, published the index on Monday.
The paper was titled “The PIE Index 2020-21: Measuring the health of primary and secondary education systems in India”.
It was developed to measure the health of primary and secondary education systems broadly on three parameters – performance, infrastructure and equity.
It divided the country into three categories – large states, small states and UTs. Among the small states, Sikkim and Goa secured the top ranks while Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh had the lowest ranks.
In some states such as Tripura, only 20 per cent of schools had access to electricity. In Bihar and Meghalaya, the proportion of those with working computers was only 15 per cent, said the paper.
The UTs performed the best while the small states were ranked the lowest. The Ministry of Education has its own tool – the Performance Grading Index or PGI.
In the PIE index, Punjab emerged as the best-ranking large state. It is closely followed by Kerala and Tamil Nadu. The worst-performing large states were Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Among the UTs, Lakshadweep, Puducherry and Chandigarh performed exceedingly well.
