Meghalaya Youth Congress seeks structural reforms to revamp school education

A day after highlighting improvements in Meghalaya's school education performance, the Meghalaya Pradesh Youth Congress (MPYC) has urged the state government to undertake comprehensive structural reforms, stating that the sector continues to face deep-rooted challenges despite recent gains in national performance indicators.

In a memorandum submitted to Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma on Monday, MPYC President Timjim K. Momin welcomed the state's improvement in the Performance Grading Index (PGI) 2.0, which rose from a score of 448 in 2024–25 to 525.71 in 2025–26, moving Meghalaya from the Akanshi-3 to the Akanshi-1 category. However, he said the latest findings of NITI Aayog and national learning assessments indicate that systemic issues continue to affect the quality of school education.

Citing official data, Momin said 74 government schools in the state currently have zero student enrolment despite 152 teachers being posted, while 1,414 single-teacher schools cater to nearly 49,807 students. He also referred to the PARAKH Rashtriya Survekshan 2024, which found that Meghalaya's learning outcomes remain below the national average across key subjects.

"These figures clearly show that although administrative indicators have improved, education in Meghalaya is still in the ICU. The State now needs structural reforms that improve classroom teaching, strengthen accountability, and enhance learning outcomes," Momin said.

The memorandum proposes a series of reforms aimed at strengthening governance, improving teacher deployment and enhancing classroom learning. These include scientific school mapping and rationalisation based on enrolment, accessibility, infrastructure and teacher availability, along with time-bound teacher rationalisation to ensure equitable staffing across schools.

The Youth Congress also called for clearly defined accountability for officials at every level of the education system, including the Directorate of School Education, district and sub-divisional education officers, block mission coordinators, cluster resource coordinators, head teachers and classroom teachers. It recommended reducing teachers' non-academic responsibilities to enable greater focus on classroom instruction while strengthening the leadership role of head teachers.

The memorandum further sought sustained investment in school infrastructure, including classrooms, drinking water, sanitation, electricity, furniture, libraries and digital learning facilities, particularly in rural and remote areas. It advocated a long-term objective of assigning one teacher to every classroom and suggested temporary classroom partitions as an interim measure to reduce multi-grade teaching where infrastructure remains inadequate.

Among other recommendations, the MPYC urged timely distribution of textbooks and teaching-learning materials before the start of each academic session, strengthened implementation of the SPARK Programme and Foundational Literacy and Numeracy initiatives, continuous teacher training and mentoring, and the creation of a digital monitoring system to track teacher deployment, enrolment, attendance, infrastructure and learning outcomes.

The memorandum also proposed the formation of Constituency Education Monitoring Committees under the chairmanship of local MLAs, with representation from the Education Department, School Management Committees, educationists and community leaders to periodically review school functioning and government programmes. It further called for greater participation of School Management Committees, Village Education Committees and parents in improving student attendance and school development.

Momin said Meghalaya's recent improvement in the PGI should be viewed as an opportunity to address long-standing structural deficiencies rather than as an indication that the challenges have been resolved.

"The future of Meghalaya depends on the quality of education we provide today. Every child deserves a qualified teacher, a proper classroom and access to quality learning. I urge the State Government to implement these reforms in a time-bound manner so that no child is deprived of quality education due to administrative shortcomings," he said.