Meghalaya Chief Minister, Conrad Sangma on Thursday said that the government has taken transformative steps to improve the education sector in the state.
Speaking at the MPOWER Education Conclave 2025, Sangma said that over the years, different departments in the government have lost focus of their purpose and focused more on achieving saturation in schemes.
MPOWER Meghalaya is a government-led project, supported by the World Bank, aimed at enhancing the well-being, empowerment and resilience of adolescents in the state aiming to address challenges like high dropout rates and teenage pregnancies through a multi-structural approach involving different sectors like education, health and skill development for youth aged 9-19. The conclave 2025 was held in collaboration with the State Department of Education.
“As a government as department of Education as officials and as teachers we must focus on the child, for which were are here today which should be our driving force,” he said.
The Chief Minister also informed that various programs that have been started by the government including MPOWER are programs that not only diagnose the issues afflicting the various stakeholders but also offer solutions.
“It often happens that we treat adolescents and their behaviour as a problem but fail to address the actual problem of emotion, physical and psychological growth that they are going through during adolescence and MPOWER is trying to address this,” he added.
Through this MPOWER programme, Sangma said, issues related to adolesece like school drop- out, teen age pregnancies, drug abuse will be addressed to a large extent but the energies of the youth will be nurtured and shaped in the right direction.
Talking about the reforms and measures taken in the Education sector, the Chief Minister said, “A large number of transformative steps have been taken in the last few years but Education is a very ‘sticky’ in a sense that the results of the decisions that have been taken will bear results after ten or fifteen years and does not happen overnight.”
He further said that for changes to take place in the Education sector one has to be patient but the motion and the foundation to make the difference has started.
He informed that apart from many issues in the Education department having too categories of schools is a major issue.
“We have 14,000 schools and there is a problem in the rationalisation of different schools, there are also structural problems which need to be resolved in a transitional manner into a new phase,” the Chief Minister added.
Referring to the problems faced by SSA and Ad-Hoc teachers, Sangma said that there is no set system for SSA and Ad-Hoc teachers and added, “Therefore there has to be some kind of system in place where there is some kind of surety and the government is trying to structure a system for the SSA and Ad-Hoc teachers to give them this surety and guarantee.”
“While we are transitioning into a structured and organised system we also trying to rationalise the schools and its assets and reduce the category of schools,” he added.
Sangma said that the decisions that are taken in the present day will have impact in the future bringing in a transformative and permanent solution to the problems in Education sector.
Announcing the CM Mission of 100 per cent Toilets, Sangma said, “Though this program is not only for schools under this programme we will ensure that all schools have toilets with water supply.”
Under this programme, he said all tourist places, schools, colleges, hospitals, offices and public places will have clean toilets to ensure universal sanitation and accessibility to clean toilets and washrooms all across the state.
The Chief Minister said that apart from the teachers the officials in the Education department at different administrative levels play a critical role in implementation of the vision and policies of the government.
Transformative steps taken to improve education sector: CM Conrad Sangma
CorrespondentSHILLONG, OCT 30
