By Ellerine Diengdoh
Education is the process of learning things you didn’t know you needed, so you can forget them later. It is also how the system takes tiny children and gradually turns them into taller, more confused adults with degrees and no jobs. In Meghalaya, this process has reached new heights—mostly because no one’s looked down in a while.
Let’s begin with the NEP. That’s the New Education Policy, not a new shampoo brand, though both promise transformation and mostly leave you with regret and split ends. The NEP was meant to revolutionise education across India, which is why, in our state, it began right at the top—with postgraduate programmes. Apparently, if you want to change how six-year-olds learn counting, the best place to start is with people who’ve already studied quantum mechanics. From there, it trickled down slowly, like a stubborn tap, into colleges, where no parents nor students asked questions, because they weren’t quite sure which ones to ask. Eventually and almost by accident, it reached schools. Which makes perfect sense, because when you build a house you start with the roof and move down to the foundation. I could say more, but I’m saving it for my next article, which I’ll also write backwards, just to stay true to the spirit of the NEP.
Next comes CUET, the Common University Entrance Test. It’s called “Common” because it is meant for everyone, “University” because you’ll need one to decipher it, and “Entrance” because escape is no longer an option. The idea was to have a single test for all students across India. Unfortunately, the script seems to have gotten lost somewhere between Delhi and the Northeast. Now, with the test so close that you can smell the ink on the question papers, it’s finally occurred to someone that students might—just might—need an exam centre in the state they live in. So, in a last-minute scramble, officials rushed to ask the NTA if they’d be kind enough to conduct CUET here. The NTA, naturally, responded by blinking slowly and refreshing the page.
When asked why none of this was planned earlier, public officials pointed at each other, then at the sky, and finally at their shoes—possibly in case responsibility had fallen on the floor. As for those responsible for last year’s CUET mess, they’ve vanished. Some say they’re on leave. Others say they’ve transcended to a higher plane of bureaucracy, where nothing happens and no one is to blame.
Still, the exam will happen. Students are preparing by collecting documents, clearing their browser cache, praying to the router, and reading instructions that appear to have been written under duress. If they manage to pass, it won’t be because of the system. It’ll be in spite of it!
Just when you thought things couldn’t get stranger, the Class 10 results arrived with a shock.They were so unexpectedly good, that they caused a crisis. The administration immediately held emergency meetings, not to “celebrate”, but to figure out what to do with all these newly qualified, bright-eyed students. Until then, the plan is to have no plan. Apparently, nobody expected success. Success wasn’t in the budget. Now, schools are scrambling to find space, desks, teachers, possibly even bunk beds. If there’s one thing we know, it’s that the system works best when its collective rear is on fire. That’s when things move—not with strategy, but with smoke trails and panic.
Then there’s inclusive education—our bold commitment to ensuring every child gets a chance, preferably sometime before they turn 30. Word on the street is that the authorities have hired exactly one special needs teacher. For all the schools in town. What is interesting, is that inclusive education now means, inclusively sharing one exhausted human being among dozens of classrooms and saying, “we sort of noticed the problem and tossed one person at it before running away”.
In a scene straight out of a farce, we finally arrive at Meghalaya’s first State University. It exists, or it doesn’t, depends on who you ask and how loudly. The administration said colleges wouldn’t be forced to affiliate, which in official language means, “You have a choice, between yes and yes” Twenty-two colleges “agreed,” either out of enthusiasm, confusion, or the timeless instinct to nod, just to get the meeting over with. NEHU, the existing university, wasn’t too thrilled about colleges two-timing it. Because in academia, playing the field only leads to heartbreak and a mountain of angry emails. Now, colleges are in a state of uncertainty—not the deep philosophical kind, but the literal kind. They genuinely don’t know who they belong to, or whether their degrees will arrive in envelopes or through a séance.
Our education system isn’t collapsing. It’s just been asleep so long, we’ve started calling the snoring “progress”. As Mark Twain put it, “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” And judging by how things are going, that might be the only advice left worth following….