Shillong, February 12, 2025 – The Meghalaya government has increased funding for the Education Department by 14% for FY 2024, reinforcing its commitment to strengthening the sector. As part of this initiative, the state plans to establish 8-9 new government colleges across various disciplines to improve access to higher education.
“We will be having almost close to 8-9 new government colleges in different disciplines being activated this year itself in terms of higher and technical education,” Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma said.
Currently, the state provides financial assistance to 4,172 aided schools and colleges, with East Khasi Hills hosting 47 colleges, West Garo Hills 15, and Ri Bhoi 10, while the remaining districts have colleges in single digits. Additionally, the state has expanded its People’s College initiative, with 23 such institutions aimed at strengthening higher education.
“We have gone for a large number of People’s Colleges. We have 23 People’s Colleges today. Again, this is targeted towards strengthening higher education in our state. We now have our own state university. Earlier, it was meant to be a technical university, but now it is a full-fledged state university because of the CUET issue, which now allows colleges to affiliate with the state university so that they can bypass the CUET examination,” Sangma explained.
The Education Department’s budget allocation has increased significantly over the years. In FY 2016, the budget stood at ₹1,085 crore, which rose to ₹2,338 crore in FY 2024, reflecting the 14% jump as part of a broader investment strategy across multiple sectors.
“In education, if you see, the expenditure has gone up from ₹1,085 crore, which increased to ₹2,338 crore in FY 2024. So you can see a 14% jump in education, and for the first time, we are implementing a lot of actual infrastructure improvement,” the Chief Minister stated.
He further highlighted the government’s extensive school infrastructure development over the past four years. “In the last four years all Government schools almost 2500 plus schools have received a new building or have been renovated, the infrastructure for Lower Primary, Upper Primary, Secondary, Higher Secondary, Colleges all Government school infrastructures have got a huge push and huge investment has been made by the Government,” he added.