SHILLONG: The General Secretary of the Meghalaya Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC), Manuel Badwar, has launched a scathing attack on the state government following reports that Meghalaya has plummeted to the bottom of the national Performance Grading Index (PGI) for education.
Speaking at a public forum, Badwar sharply criticized the state leadership for its lack of focus, reminding the administration that education is a Concurrent List subject under the Constitution.
He emphasized that the sector demands collaborative execution and active responsibility from the state rather than an absolute, passive dependence on central government directives.
The Congress leader pointed out that while Meghalaya actually outperforms the Centre in terms of educational spending relative to its Gross Domestic Product (GDP), these substantial financial investments are completely failing to translate into tangible, real-world academic results.
Badwar attributed this failure entirely to a critical lack of governance and administrative focus from the state leadership, which has neutralized the impact of high budgetary allocations.
Exposing the operational crisis within the state’s schooling system, Badwar revealed that firsthand interactions with school administrations and teaching staff paint a highly chaotic picture.
He explained that educators are currently buried under non-teaching administrative duties and constantly shifting weekly data management requirements.
This immense operational burden, he argued, forces teachers away from their primary instructional roles, causing the entire educational system to suffer from a lack of proper guidance and classroom attention.
Taking a different angle on the poor national ranking, the Congress leader also raised concerns regarding potential political bias.
He suggested that Meghalaya’s dismal position could partly stem from an agenda or bias by the central BJP government against minority-run institutions, which he claims are otherwise performing fairly well across the state.
While admitting that the state is genuinely failing in several other parameters, Badwar urged the government to leverage its comprehensive data to quickly address “low-hanging fruits” rather than relying on political lip service that has only worsened the situation over recent years.
The MPCC leader also took a firm stand against Chief Minister Conrad Sangma’s public assurances regarding rapid PGI score improvements, dismissing the rhetoric and heavily criticizing the state’s aggressive promotion of the “CM Guidebook” for students and teachers.
Badwar argued that spoon-feeding students by deriving sixty percent of examination questions directly from a single guidebook severely cripples actual learning outcomes. According to Badwar, this practice renders the system incapable of teaching students how to think, process knowledge, or solve problems critically, effectively killing intellectual growth.
To validate his critique, Badwar highlighted that secondary school pass percentages still hover poorly around fifty-six to fifty-seven percent despite the introduction of these guidebooks. He openly questioned the realistic possibility of jumping to a ninety percent pass rate within a single year under the current approach.
Concluding his address, the Congress leader warned that an education system focused purely on inflating numbers rather than fostering genuine intellectual processing risks producing a generation stripped of its true potential, a crisis that he warns will ultimately drive severe social challenges, including youth depression, across Meghalaya.
