SHILLONG, May 27: After the poor performance of some schools from Garo Hills in the SSLC examination, Congress MLA Saleng Sangma has asked the state government to systematise the administration and the education sector in entirety.
Reacting to the poor performance of Garo Hills-based schools, Sangma said that the students cannot alone be blamed for the situation even as he emphasised that the entire system needs overhauling.
Citing an example, he said that Science and Maths teachers have not been appointed in select schools of the region.
If the authorities are not serious, how can the students get proper education and do well in the examinations, he remarked.
Recalling that many teachers last year came to Shillong to participate in protests over salary and other issues, Sangma said similar grievances were also raised during elections.
Lamenting that even the education infrastructure is not well-equipped, Saleng added that teachers are not being trained properly and there is a dearth of training institute for teachers in the Garo Hills region.
He asserted that the party will ask the Chief Minister and Education Minister to have a streamlined system for the education sector.
Meanwhile, the MLA expressed disappointment over only one candidate from Meghalaya clearing the Civil Services Examination this year.
It may be mentioned that the pass percentage of a majority of the schools in Garo Hills was 26-28%, which is very low compared to East Khasi Hills (73%), West Jaintia Hills (71%), and Eastern West Khasi Hills (64%).
After improving to an all-time high of more than 34% last year, the pass percentage of the entire Garo Hills region dropped by more than 2% with only 31.94% of students that appeared for the SSLC this year succeeding. The overall pass percentage of the entire state stood at 51.93%.
The best-performing district in Garo Hills was West Garo Hills with 36.58% of students passing. The total number of students that appeared in the district was 9,925 while 3,631 of these passed.
The next best was the district of East Garo Hills with 2,897 students appearing for the exam and 1,020 passing to notch up an average of 35.2%. The other three districts recorded below 30%.
In South Garo Hills, only 755 out of a total of 2,709 candidates passed while 955 of the 3,573 candidates in South West Garo Hills sailed through. North Garo Hills was the worst performer with 962 of 3,821 candidates succeeding to record an overall pass percentage of 25.17.
Overall, a total of 22,925 students appeared for the exams in the Garo Hills this year and only 7,323 sailed through.
