Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma wrote a letter to Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan stressing over the education system of the state.
In the letter penned down to the Education Minister on Tuesday, Conrad Sangma highlighted five key areas of the education system of the state that need immediate attention and intervention to enhance the quality of teaching and learning.
Conrad Sangma appreciated Dharmendra Pradhan’s dynamic leadership to bring about the overall development of the education sector in the country.
The letter to the education minister read, “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 also raised concerns on 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.
Further, the Meghalaya CM also emphasized the challenges faced by the state in implementing the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. he also highlighted the shortfall in funding under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and urged to reconsider the funding pattern.
"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 further read.
