Shillong, May 27: With Meghalaya placed at the bottom of the national Performance Grading Index (PGI) 2.0 rankings, Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma on Wednesday said the Union Education Ministry would send a team to the State to assess the education sector and support ongoing reforms, while asserting that the Government expected visible improvement in the 2025-26 assessment cycle and significantly better rankings within the next two years, although the full impact of the reforms could take another five to six years to reflect fully in national indicators.
Addressing media persons after the State Cabinet meeting, Sangma said detailed discussions were held with the Union Education Minister on Meghalaya’s PGI performance, structural challenges in the education sector and the long-term reforms initiated by the State Government.
“The meeting with Education Minister was for the PGI rankings and again, I explain to Union Education Minister that why we will expect and we do expect a numbers to definitely go up,” Sangma said.
“As I said the full impact as I explained to him also, will take us about five to six years more but as a immediately about two years time, you will see some things changing and rankings going up,” he added.
The Chief Minister said education remained a “very complicated and a very sticky subject” where policy decisions often take years before producing measurable results.
“So, this is something that we’ve been experiencing for a very long time. That education is a very complicated and a very sticky subject and there are multiple factors that needs be the PGI ranking that takes place,” he said.
Explaining the structural complications affecting Meghalaya’s ranking, Sangma pointed to the fragmented school system in the State, where multiple schools operate from the same premises but are assessed separately under different UDISE registrations.
“For us to be able to like for example, a simple thing like the number of schools that we have, this becomes a challenge for us because in the same building, there are four schools but technically, there should be just one School, but they have got their own UDISE number and they are registered with Government of India and each one then is assessed in a different manner,” he said.
“And the overall performance in each one is then adding up to the average for the state, which, in many, many factors brings down the numbers, it’s difficult explain without a presentation,” he added.
Sangma maintained that several measures introduced by the Government over the past four years were specifically aimed at improving educational quality and PGI indicators.
“But what I’m try to tell you is that the decisions we took, for example, the decisions that we have taken to give a structural pay to different teachers is precisely being done to impact the PGI,” he said.
Highlighting improvements in retention levels, the Chief Minister said Meghalaya’s dropout rate had now fallen below the national average.
“Now, you will see, like, small things what you have done, when our pass percentage went up, now our drop out rate has gone down below the national average which down to now 6%. Why our drop out rate was high? because 59 percent of our SSLC students failed, So the question of them going to class 12 did not arise that impacted our PGI rankings, I am giving some examples,” he said.
Urging patience before conclusions were drawn from the current rankings, Sangma expressed optimism that the next PGI assessment cycle would reflect the impact of recent reforms.
“Again, I not jump the gun, I urge you to please do wait for the 2025-26 assessment that is going to come out in the month of June July. I am very, very hopeful that our numbers are going to go up,” he said.
“All the decisions and the works that we have done in the last especially the last three to four years to push up education, We will see some impact of that in the 2025-26 rankings because as I said, education is such a subject where whatever decision you take, it’s not that you see the impact immediately, it takes time any kind of human aspects that are there, all of these takes time to show results,” he added.
The Chief Minister said discussions with the Union Education Minister also covered language policy, CBSE-related matters, higher technical education and issues concerning North-Eastern Hill University.
“Then of course after we explain that part, we explain to the union minister and thank him, of course for the languages, the CBSE he also discussed about the language aspect in the state how we we need to balance everything out, we discussed about different aspects of NEHU and high Technical Education in the state,” Sangma said.
He said the Centre would now undertake a closer review of Meghalaya’s education reforms and explore possible support mechanisms.
“So those were the basic discussions but a lot of time went on the PGI aspect and Union Education minister is sending a team in this month end or maybe early next month to also further examine and look into all the works that we have and how Central Government can also assist and support us to improve the steps we take,” the CM added.
Centre to Send Team as PGI Rankings Expected to Improve in Two Years: Meghalaya CM
