Correspondent
Shillong: Meghalaya is confronting a pressing issue of high school dropout rates, with the Education Department undertaking several reforms to tackle the problem. Among the key measures are the revival of non-functional residential schools and the establishment of new Eklavya Model Residential Schools (EMRS), which are expected to be transformative.
According to the 2023-24 SDG Index report, Meghalaya has the highest annual dropout rate in the region at the secondary level (classes 9-10), standing at 21.7%. Swapnil Tembe, IAS, Director of School Education & Literacy and State Project Director, Samagra Shiksha (SEMAM), highlighted access to schools as one of the primary reasons for this alarming statistic.
"So dropouts, there are many reasons. We have done a survey, and the major reason is access to schools because we have around 9,000 lower primary schools out of the 14,000 schools in a small state like Meghalaya. If you combine them with Upper Primary, there are 12,000 elementary schools, but only thousands are secondary schools, and around 420 are higher secondary schools. So you can see the first problem is access," Tembe explained.
To address the issue, the department has prioritized reviving residential schools. "For that, we are trying to revive many residential schools that were made earlier but not functional. We have made a society to look into that," he said.
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