Meghalaya Govt's efforts to check school drop-outs

SHILLONG, January 29: Meghalaya has a dubious distinction of having the highest drop out rate in the country. In fact, out of the 100 students that get admitted in KG standard, only 36 students remain in school after they reach Xth standard. Talking to this correspondent, Ranjan Chatterjee, Commissioner, Education said that the drop out percentage in Meghalaya is 64, the highest in the country. Chatterjee said that an all out effort is being planned to arrest the rate of drop outs and have greater interaction between the students and teachers. In a order, the State Government has made it compulsory for all schools to have a minimum of 220 "effective teaching days" in a year for all govt-aided, government and deficit schools. The national curriculum framework brought out by the NCERT in December, 2000 had suggested that there should be a minimum of 220 days in a year for effective instruction, after excluding the time taken for test examination, school functions, evaluation, activities of preparatory holidays. The Director of Higher and Technical Education, in a recent order, had reiterated that all lower primary schools, upper primary schools, secondary/higher secondary schools and colleges are to reopen on February 5, 2001 in view of the fact that educational institutions in Meghalaya are not meeting the required number of instructional days. Meanwhile, the Meghalaya Government is planning to do away with the present system of extending allocation to various schools like deficit, ad hoc and venture schools and replace it with a more viable and practical system of grants in aid approach to mitigate the financial problems affecting the quality of education and prevent recurrence of several problems to the Government. Ranjan Chatterjee said that though a final decision is yet to be taken by the State Cabinet, the proposal will go a long way in doing away with the present system prevalent in extending finances to the schools. All the deficit schools will be brought under the grant-in-aid scheme where the managing committees, the parents and the community will have a more proactive role to play in improving the quality of standards of education in their schools and managing their finances in a more judicious manner, Chatterjee said, adding that the entire idea is being mooted to reduce the Government's role in microplanning in each school and increasing accountability.