Shillong: Education in East Garo Hills is hitting rock bottom. Students at Mejolgre Chekjongbra near Rongmil face a daily struggle for basic shelter. The school compound houses both Lower Primary and Upper Primary sections, yet the reality on the ground remains grim. The LP school serves over 120 students with just three small rooms. One room features a partition, and another lacks proper roofing, leaving it vulnerable to water damage whenever it rains.
Headmaster Clayford Sangma said, "Earlier we didn’t even have a roof over our heads to protect from the sun or the rain. While we do have some protection now, the classrooms are too small to accommodate the numbers that come daily." Local residents even pooled money to build a thatched bamboo structure to alleviate the overcrowding, but it remains a temporary fix for a desperate situation.
The nearby UP section, established in 2009, is in worse shape. It maintains only 19 students despite having three teachers. Frequent rain forces teachers to call off classes because the building is dilapidated. The structure lacks functional toilets, floors, and a proper storeroom. Teachers report that even the staircase is crumbling. Despite submitting repair estimates to the Rongjeng C&RD Block and the education department, nothing has changed.
Grikjang G Momin, a local resident, noted that the education department ignores the needs of these children. Families are now choosing to send their kids to other schools five kilometers away to avoid the leaking roofs and poor conditions. Successive governments have promised to prioritize education, but these rural schools remain in the doldrums. Without immediate intervention, students in Garo Hills will continue to fall behind the rest of the country.
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