By Melari Shisha Nongrum
In the past few weeks, issues related to education have been the highlight of our local newspapers; from the ongoing stir of the Meghalaya College Teachers Association against the hasty implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP) to the woes of primary and secondary schools having no subject-specfic teachers for science and mathematics for many months. The Education Minister stated that there are 168 primary schools having enrolment of less than 10 and another 101 upper primary school having equally poor enrolment which was a cause of concern even for the Ministry of Education. A headline states ‘Two out of three months pending teachers salary will be released’ which seems to have become common parlance. This is the condition of school education.
Who wants to put the future of their children in a government school where learning is questionable? I remember my conversation with Kong Mem (name changed), a resident of a village in Lyngngam area of West Khasi Hills. She told me she had six children and she sends her children to a convent school in Umdang. I asked her, why she did not send her children to the primary school in her village, she said, “It is not functional; it has one old teacher and three to four students.” She said that she will work hard so that she can send her children to the convent school. Thank God for faith-based institutions. But why do we have to depend on the private sector? Why do we have to spend so much of our resources on education when it is a fundamental right of every child? With the Right to Education, 2009, India has moved to a rights-based framework that casts a legal obligation on the Central and State Governments to implement this fundamental child right.
The public education system in Meghalaya has failed and parents in urban and rural areas understand this fact. If the faith-based schools were not there, where would the children go? I am more concerned of the larger majority of children in rural areas who have little choice. Those who can afford are sending their children to the urban schools. But this is not the solution. The Ministry of Education, Government of India’s website, states that Article 21-A, in the Constitution of India means that every child has a right to full time elementary education of satisfactory and equitable quality in a formal school which satisfies certain essential norms and standards. The words ‘satisfactory’ and ‘equitable quality’ are not in the ‘Meghalayans’ diction anymore. Satisfaction and equitable quality can be gauged from the quality of learning in government schools in comparison to private schools in rural Meghalaya which is documented in the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) facilitated by Pratham. Excerpts from Meghalaya ASER 2022 states, the percentage of Std III children who can do division is 15.3% and 20.5% in government and private schools respectively and percentage of Std V children who can read English sentences is 39.4% and 52.8% in government and private schools respectively.
Meghalaya has constituted the State Education Commission since July 2023 but we are yet to hear of any reforms that have been recommended. Yes, I agree, that it has been a mere three months, but in the crisis that we are in, I would urge the State Education Commission to take big strides to salvage what we have left before a whole generation of eager learners are lost in the cracks and get labelled as ‘dropout’, ‘unemployable’, ‘unskilled’ or even ‘anti-social’.
As the public, we demand the government’s accountability with respect to school education. This is because School Education is a Fundamental Right and almost 15% of the state’s budgetary resources are being spent on this sector. But more importantly, numerous studies have found that completion of 10 years of school can bring about a drastic change in health variables such as better health and lifespan compared to their less-educated peers and positively influences infant mortality, life expectancy, child vaccination, and enrolment rates. Meghalaya will not be able to improve the rankings in the multi-dimensional poverty index if we do not tackle the real problem i.e. poor education. All initiatives in sectors of tourism or livelihood or agriculture or health will not achieve their intended success, if we do not provide a strong educational foundation to our children who will become the youth and future of our state. I recall of a quote by Gordon B. Hinckley which says “You can’t build a great building on a weak foundation. You must have a solid foundation if you’re going to have a strong superstructure”. The same applies to our children. How can we expect our children to take on the reins of various sectors of the state, when they do not have a strong foundation.
The Meghalaya Board for Secondary Education (MBOSE) is celebrating its Golden Jubilee to mark 50 years of its existence where one of its programmes is to highlight the milestones of MBOSE. I’m sorry for being a pessimist here, but what celebration are we talking about when school education is in a crisis and the pass percentage of Secondary School Leaving Certificate is just 51.93%? Is it not time to instead introspect and learn from past mistakes, implement the National Education Policy in schools in its true spirit, take drastic steps to clean the mess with various categories of teachers and most importantly build an accountability system with checks and balances.
Dear Education Minister, you and a few ‘haves’ can afford to send your children to study in the best schools in Shillong or in the metropolitan cities and even abroad. But what about the rest of us? No one should be left behind. Yes, the problem is multi-faceted but things can change for the better, if there is political will. You have had the chance to be well educated; you have the power to change the wheel. We need revolutionary changes in the education sector to make ‘satisfactory’ and ‘equitable quality’ school education a reality for all in Meghalaya.