NONGSTOIN, Jan 17: Chief Minister Conrad Sangma on Tuesday inaugurated the new building of Sibsingh Memorial Govt. Higher Secondary School, the construction of which was completed in 11 months.
Sanctioned at an amount of Rs 4.47 crore, the upgrade of the school will now provide better educational facilities to students in the area.
The new building of the school, which had remained in a dilapidated condition for years, was inaugurated in the presence of Nongstoin MLA Macmillan Byrsat, Commissioner and Secretary of Education department BDR Tiwari, among others.
Reacting to the inauguration, an elated Conrad said, “The upgradation of the school was finished in 11 months! Must congratulate the contractors and the department for making this possible for our students of Sib Sing Govt. Hr. Sec. School, that has served Nongstoin for over 60 years.”
Conrad said that despite challenges galore, many positive changes have taken place in the education sector.
“In 2018, when we had taken over the government, we shared with the people of the state the vision that we had for our state. We stressed on the fact that the youths will play a very important role in the society. Though there are many aspects relating to the youths, we realised that education is a very critical part of ensuring that we are able to provide the opportunities to the youths. Hence, education became a priority for us and we did our best to ensure that we took the education sector to a new level,” he said.
The chief minister said that apart from different policies and issues relating to the education commission, reforms in the Education department were brought to ensure that issues in the education sector could be resolved.
“The NPP-led MDA government took the initiative to upgrade all government LP, UP, Secondary and Higher Secondary Schools under the Meghalaya School Infrastructure Upgradation Project. This decision is bringing new hope to our students across the state. I dedicate this to their future,” he said.
Meanwhile, Conrad informed that in the last five years, huge investments have been made by the government to ensure that good infrastructure is made available for students, especially in the rural Meghalaya.
He also lauded the efforts of Nongstoin MLA Macmillan Byrsat for making endeavours in taking his constituency forward.
“There are a lot of challenges and it is not that the government has got unlimited resources. We have limited resources and we have to judiciously use them; and when leaders like Macmillan come and explain to us the importance of the projects, it motivates us to take them up and do them,” Conrad said, admitting that it was Byrsat’s intervention that ensured that the school was upgraded.