Meghalaya will soon implement a state school quality assessment framework to rank all schools, aiming to assist students and parents in selecting the best educational institutions.
Commissioner Secretary of Education Vijay Mantri announced, “We are very soon going to launch the state school quality assessment framework, and with this, we are going to rank all the schools in the state.”
The School Quality Assessment Framework is a tool designed to evaluate and monitor the qualitative and quantitative aspects of the school ecosystem. The dimensions and standards of this framework are identified and grouped into six domains in accordance with the guidelines of the NEP 2020.
Regarding college accreditation, he clarified that the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) already oversees the process. “Already, the central government is doing that—that’s NAAC accreditation. All the colleges are under NAAC accreditation. But for the schools, as you were saying correctly, there’s no framework to assess the quality or rank them. So now we are making a framework. Next academic year, we are going to do that. We are going to rank all the schools,” Mantri stated.
To assist parents and students in verifying the legitimacy of institutions outside Meghalaya, the government is considering a dedicated helpline. “Again, that’s a huge mandate, but we are willing to provide. Maybe we can open one 24/7 inquiry number where one call to us and they can enquire, and we can provide assistance to parents—whether the school or college they are going outside for is genuine or not. We can verify and give information to them,” he said.
He assured that the modalities for this initiative would be finalized soon. “We’ll establish the modalities very soon. What we can do is that if anybody wants to know from our state government whether a particular college or school is genuine or not, we will give that information. We will enquire and give information,” he added.