SHILLONG, AUG 27: NPP legislator from Gambegre Dr Mehtab Chandee A Sangma on Thursday credited the CM-IMPACT programme for Meghalaya’s record SSLC performance, but said the state must now focus on quality of education and access in rural areas.
Taking part in the short duration discussion on the state of education moved by UDP MLA Paul Lyngdoh, Sangma said the government’s intervention has reversed years of poor performance.
“The CM-IMPACT programme has been showing great result. Because of CM-IMPACT we can see the pass percentage has gone up in SSLC from 54.80% to 97.26% this year. The dropout rate has dropped drastically from 17.4% to 6.7%,” she said.
She, however, cautioned against equating higher pass percentage with overall improvement.
“While these results are very promising, we also need to reconsider the total outcome. Quality of teaching and critical thinking should be taken into consideration,” she said.
Sangma highlighted the acute shortage of HSSLC schools in rural Meghalaya, noting that most higher secondary schools are clustered in Shillong and Tura.
“In my constituency there is only one HSSLC school. Till now students still need to travel about 2-3 hours to reach their centres. HSSLC schools are not proportionately distributed district-wise,” she said, urging the Education department to conduct a district-wise survey for equitable distribution.
She also pitched for agriculture-based skilling centres in rural areas to provide an alternative pathway for students unable to continue regular studies after SSLC.
“We are an agrarian society. We have our own university now. Certain courses and curriculum can be tailor-made which is suitable for our youth. We need skilling institutes based on agriculture in rural areas,” she said.
“Students who may have many factors not to go out and not be able to pursue further studies should still have avenues of pursuing vocational studies tailor-made for them,” she added.
