Highlights issues related to education in the state
SHILLONG: Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma on Tuesday wrote a letter to Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan urging immediate action to resolve pressing issues affecting the state’s education system.
The letter highlights five key areas that require urgent attention and intervention to enhance the quality of teaching and learning in Meghalaya which bears a direct impact on the quality of teaching and learning thereby affecting the performance of students and their learning outcomes. In a letter to Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma appreciated his dynamic leadership to bring about the overall development of the education sector in the country and with a mission to disseminate learner-centric strategy with an emphasis on equity, access, and high-quality education.
The first concern raised by CM Conrad Sangma pertains to the shortage of trained teachers in Meghalaya.
“The State of Meghalaya has a huge backlog of untrained teachers due to limited Institutional facilities. The State have only 5(five) College of Teacher Education (CTE) with an intake capacity of only 350 seats per academic year against a backlog of 5548 Secondary and 2043 Higher Secondary untrained teachers. The state evidently has a very low capacity for carrying out B.Ed courses, which is presently a minimum pre-service professional qualification for Secondary and Higher Secondary teachers,” the letter written to Pradhan reads. It further raised the concern about the backlog of 18900 untrained elementary teachers as the state has only seven DIETs and one Teacher Training Centre with an intake of 550 trainees per academic session, posing a huge challenge to bridge this gap.
CM Conrad Sangma also emphasized the challenges faced by the state in implementing the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. “The State Government of Meghalaya is preparing to implement the NEP in its entirety and considering that the State is not equipped with adequate infrastructure and other logistic support that will require additional funds for appointment of teachers, construction of an additional classroom, development of Pedagogy Resource Training, ECCE development, school complexes, etc. for which the assistance of the Central Government is sought for,” the letter said.
Furthermore, CM Sangma highlighted the shortfall in funding under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and urged to reconsider the funding pattern. The letter also drew attention to the vacancies in various positions within North Eastern Hill University (NEHU). (ANI)
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