Meghalaya govt holds consultation for provincialisation of deficit schools, colleges: Rakkam

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaJune 5, 2025

Education Minister Rakkam A Sangma on Thursday said the government is in the process of holding consultation for provincialisation of all deficit schools and colleges across the state.

“The government is coming up with the Meghalaya Education Grant (MEG). We are in the initial stage of holding consultation with the management of all deficit institutions as government is preparing to take over or provincialised all of them,” Sangma told reporters. 

Stating that the objective is to streamline the education sector, the minister said, “We want to have maximum three categories of teachers – governmnet, non-government and private.”

According to him, currently the state is having 13 categories of school teachers and 4-5 categories of college teachers.

Admitting that challenges will be there, Sangma said, “Many institutions will not agree and many institutions will be happy to become government institutions. Therefore, we are having this consultation to know whether these deficit institutions will give their consent or not.”

The minister will be meeting legislators in Shillong tomorrow to discuss the proposal of the government.

“First proposal is government is preparing to take over or provincialise all deficit institutions from college to the primary school level as there are already sanctioned posts…,” Sangma said adding “There is a challenge as governing bodies of those institutions may not agree but those who will not agree, the funding patterns will be different and for those who are willing to give their consent, government will finally take a call.” 

Asked, the minister said that the government may require to spend additional Rs 30-40 crore for provincialisation of deficit institutions.

According to him, this will to a great extent help bring down the fee structure charged by the deficit institutions at present.

He cited an example saying, “In Shillong college, there are 71 government sanctioned posts. The fees charged at present by the college is Rs 60,000 but if this college becomes government college, the fee structure will hardly cost Rs 15000.”

Further, the minister informed that the government is spending nearly Rs 2000 crore on teachers’ salary annaully.

“Of this, we are spending Rs 927 crore for payment of salary to over 17289 deficit and adhoc school teachers, Rs 366 crore for 14,666 SSA teachers and Rs 216 crore for 1399 college lecturers etc,” he stated.