Staff Correspondent
Shillong: The Meghalaya Department of Education is under constraints in implementing the Right to Education (RTE) norms in around 903 schools spread across the State. The constraints in pushing forward with the ongoing implementation are the below par enrollment of students in the listed schools. These listed under-enrollment schools with assigned teachers are located in such villages where the adjacent ones have excess of pupils more than the Teacher –students ratio as prescribed RTE norms.
The Minister of Education Lakmen Rymbui did not negate this fact during the interaction with The Sentinel. "There are two to three funded schools with less than 20 pupils in the 3 km radius in many village pockets. We wanted to converge them to increase the students-teachers ratio but it is still perceived as difficult".
He said that the SSA schools could not have vanished away but the objectives of reaching them (students) have not been forthright.
Knowing fully well the government role to ensure that education should reach to all children till the age of fourteen, " It is on this line that we are reviewing to ensure the right education reach the village students through some mode of convergence to rationalize our education system".
"I am talking of rationalizing and not reforms of the education in view of the multiple role played by other institutions in imparting education in the state. Note mentioning that besides the missionaries and other village schools who takes their own call, little that the government can interfere.
Also read: Meghalaya news