The Performance Grading Index (PGI) for the year 2023-2024 places Meghalaya at the bottom of the heap. It is the only state in the 10th and lowest grade. Naturally the Education Minister has tried to run for cover and apportioned blame to the grading system, stating that they are not up to date. But what really is the PGI? It is an evidence-based assessment tool measuring the performance of school education across States and Union Territories. No one is particularly interested in putting Meghalaya in the docks. The PGI is aligned with the National Education Policy 2020 and also the Sustainable Development Goals developed by the United Nations which aims at equity in educational access. The PGI covers 6 important domains and uses 73 indicators so that it accurately measures what it seeks to. The 6 domains are Learning Outcomes, Access, Infrastructure & Facilities, Equity, Governance Processes, Teacher Education and Training. The problem with Meghalaya is that teachers in rural areas are churned out by the very same defective system that continues to feed the young brains of today’s smart world. There is a huge student-teacher disconnect. Just because the teacher has taught does not mean that every student in the class has understood the lesson. Our classrooms are not designed for asking questions. Asking a question is considered impudent. It was so in the past; it still is today. Without asking questions, where’s the scope to clear doubts and get over a mathematical obstacle?
Meghalaya’s score of 417 points indicates persistent challenges in access and learning outcomes. But much of that is also related to inability to make full use of their cognitive domains due to malnutrition. Whether this constituted one of the PGI measurements is debatable since they only measure learning outcomes and quality of such learning. The dilapidated school buildings in the rural areas of the state indicate that the Government is nonchalant about children having to sit inside such buildings for 6 hours every day. This is where school governance comes in. Was the Education Department ever a priority Department? Never! In Meghalaya the priority departments are those with big allocations such as PWD, PHE and now Tourism. Since the state was created, no minister ever willingly accepted the Education portfolio. That continues to date. Rakkam Sangma could not have been a willing candidate for this post. The reason is because educational governance is a mess. There are no regular inspections. Officers are more tied to their tables than doing their field work.
The very fact that there is a huge drop-out rate at every transition level should have worried successive governments including those that are now in the Opposition criticising what they have themselves failed to do. Retention is a challenge because of stark poverty and if this and successive governments do not tackle this economic hurdle Meghalaya will continue to make news for the wrong reasons. There is no equity in this society. The affluent can afford education; the poor cannot. There is also no stakeholder-ship in education. Parents are poor and hence voiceless and diffident to ask why their child/children failed. A revolution in Education is imperative!
