The first step towards addressing a problem is to admit there is one. Unlike Education Minister Rakkam Sangma who tried to bail himself out of a difficult situation by blaming the quality of research which ranked Meghalaya the lowest in the country on the Performance Grading Index (PGI) in education, Chief Minister, Conrad Sangma is grappling with the problem and agrees that the State needs to dissect why it consistently scores the lowest on PGI ranking. The PGI assesses the education scenario across states on several important parameters such as access to education, infrastructure and facilities, equity and governance. What flows from this study is that if all of the broad parameters are met there are better learning outcomes. The architecture of the PGI emanates from the rationale that an efficient, inclusive and equitable school education system is contingent upon the regular monitoring of interconnected matrices of inputs, outputs and outcomes related to school education indicators, and the development of a quick response system for course correction in the entire system.
The fact of the matter is that education in Meghalaya’s villages leaves much to be desired. Pictures of some of the schools in Garo Hills are deeply distressing. Classes are held in single-roomed, ramshackle structures which are prone to floods in the monsoons. That such schools continue to function without the MLA making an issue of it also shows that for most politicians education is not a priority and has never been one. If MLAs had made education a priority they would have raised the issue of poor school infrastructure; the quality of teachers appointed and the difficulty that many kids encounter to access even such schools, no matter how dilapidated they are. In all these years we have hardly heard legislators draw attention to the educational outcomes in the state even when the pass percentage for the Senior School Leaving Certificate (SSLC) was abysmal. It’s only when the matter became the topic of public scorn that the Chief Minister decided to take action and came up with the CM Impact guide books that were distributed across the state and which resulted in better SSLC results. Whether the book actually measures a student’s overall comprehension of the subject matter taught or is only learning by rote to reproduce what is memorised in the examination, is subject to further research.
The best way for students to grasp what is taught in the classroom is when interactive learning is encouraged and students feel free to ask questions and clear their doubts. Such a learning environment unfortunately does not exist in most of our schools. Students hardly dare pick up a conversation with teachers. The pedagogy adopted even today is a one way street. The teacher speaks/lectures; the students listen and whether the communication is complete is decided only during the examinations when the teacher assesses the answer scripts and finds that the answers have no relevance to the question and the student is completely off the mark. This has happened for far too long with no attempt to address the gaps and do a course correction. Hopefully this course correction will start now!
