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Students from Manipur and Nagaland continue to migrate to Shillong colleges even as their home states improve faculty qualifications. The documentary evidence suggests that institutional ecosystems, visible accreditation signals, and historical advantage matter more to families than the academic credentials teachers hold.
Manipur University faculty hold doctorates from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Banaras Hindu University, Jamia Millia Islamia, and Korea University, and management qualifications from the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. Nagaland University reports approximately eighty-nine per cent of its faculty hold PhDs, including four researchers recognised in Stanford University's World's Top Two Per Cent Scientists list for 2025. Yet students from both states continue to enrol in colleges across the border in Shillong.
The evidence is not anecdotal. A peer-reviewed study published in the IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science in 2015 surveyed 556 migrant students and found that 79.9 per cent had travelled for further studies. St. Edmund's College in Shillong reports that 45 per cent of its students come from outside Meghalaya. North-Eastern Hill University affiliates approximately sixty colleges in the city.
This documentary record raises a precise governance question. Why do students from Manipur and Nagaland migrate to Shillong colleges despite documented improvements in faculty qualifications in their home states, and what does this reveal about how educational quality is actually measured, experienced, and governed in Northeast India?
The pull toward Shillong is quantifiable and sustained. The 2015 IOSR study found that 42 per cent of migrant students cited better educational facilities as their reason for leaving, while 32.7 per cent cited geographic proximity and 10.4 per cent cited affordability. Only 3.8 per cent of Manipur migrants cited peace or stability, which indicates that educational drivers outweigh security concerns for the vast majority.
Notably, faculty quality was not identified as a primary motivation in the available migration research. This is significant because both Manipur and Nagaland have invested public funds in faculty recruitment that meets or exceeds national standards. The disconnect suggests that student decisions are shaped by variables other than the formal qualifications of teaching staff.
One such variable appears to be accreditation status. Shillong College holds an NAAC A+ grade with a CGPA of 3.33, and Synod College also holds an A+ grade. In Manipur, Don Bosco Maram College reaches 3.35, but most government and aided colleges score between 2.18 and 2.96, placing them in the B+ to B++ bands. NAAC grades function as a visible, comparable quality signal that parents and students can readily interpret.
The National Institutional Ranking Framework complicates this picture. In 2025, Manipur University remained in the 101 to 150 band, while North-Eastern Hill University dropped from 101 to 150 in 2024 to 151 to 200. No Meghalaya college ranked in the top 300. The evidence therefore does not support a straightforward narrative that Shillong institutions are objectively superior by every national metric.
Historical institutional advantage offers a partial explanation. St. Edmund's College was established in 1916 by Catholic missionaries, and Lady Keane College dates to 1935. These institutions have had more than a century to develop physical infrastructure, alumni networks, and regional reputations. Article 30 of the Constitution protects minority educational institutions, which explains why missionary-established colleges in Shillong possess historical advantages that newer institutions cannot easily replicate.
Infrastructure deficits in home states appear to be the more immediate concern. A 2022 peer-reviewed study in the Zenith Research Journal found that only 33.33 per cent of principals in Nagaland colleges reported adequate ICT facilities, 40.91 per cent of teachers reported Wi-Fi availability, and 46.94 per cent of students disagreed that sufficient library books were available. These are the conditions that prospective students compare against Shillong's campuses.
State governments have not been entirely inactive. Manipur's Higher Education Department reports a mission to achieve NAAC accreditation for all fifty-one government and aided colleges, with forty-four already accredited as of 2025 to 2026. Nagaland distributed scholarships to 42,824 beneficiaries under the CSS-Post Matric scheme and enrolled 32,915 students across seventy-two colleges. These are documented administrative efforts.
However, the documentary record indicates a persistent implementation imbalance. Faculty recruitment has improved without matching infrastructure investment. No state education department publishes a systematic student migration survey. No inter-state coordination mechanism exists to track, analyse, or address mobility patterns. Policy appears to be assumption-driven rather than evidence-driven.
The constitutional dimension is material. Article 21 of the Constitution has been judicially interpreted to include the right to quality education. When students migrate across state borders to seek that quality, they exercise a constitutional right. The corollary is that their home states bear a corresponding obligation to provide quality education locally, an obligation that the documentary record suggests is not being fully met.
Federalism adds a fiscal dimension. Education falls under the Concurrent List, and states compete for students. Yet public investment in Manipur and Nagaland faculty salaries effectively subsidises Meghalaya's economy when students migrate and spend their living allowances in Shillong hostels and markets. The absence of inter-state cooperation on higher education represents a governance gap that regional coordination could address.
Article 46, which directs the state to promote the educational interests of scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, and other backward classes, is also engaged. The 2015 study found affordability was a factor for only 10.4 per cent of migrants, which implies that those who remain in under-resourced home-state colleges may be the least advantaged families. Migration may therefore widen inequality within the region.
The Editorial Board recommends consideration of independent infrastructure and student satisfaction audits for all government and government-aided colleges in Manipur and Nagaland, with results published publicly and improvement timelines established. These audits would transform assumption-based policy into evidence-based policy and align with the states' existing NAAC accreditation missions.
The Editorial Board recommends consideration of standardized annual disclosure requirements for all affiliated colleges, including out-of-state student enrollment data, placement outcomes, and infrastructure metrics. The current absence of comparable data across states prevents both informed student choice and effective policy design.
The Editorial Board recommends consideration of an inter-state higher education cooperation agreement among Manipur, Nagaland, and Meghalaya to track student migration patterns. Regional challenges require regional responses, and the current isolation of state education departments serves no documented public interest.
The Editorial Board recommends consideration of dedicated budgetary allocation for college ecosystems, including libraries, laboratories, ICT infrastructure, and hostels, alongside continued faculty recruitment. Faculty qualifications are necessary but insufficient for institutional quality. Public investment must address the full range of variables that influence student choice.
The paradox with which this editorial opened is now clearer. Manipur and Nagaland have invested in qualified faculty, yet students leave because the broader institutional ecosystem does not convince them that quality education is available at home. What quality education means in Northeast India must be measured not only by the quality of academic credentials teachers hold, but by the institutions students choose.
The editorial acknowledges documentary limitations. The most recent publicly available systematic survey of migrant student motivations dates to 2015. No subsequent peer-reviewed or government-commissioned migration study has been located. Similarly, comparable student satisfaction data across Manipur, Nagaland, and Meghalaya institutions is not publicly available. These gaps constrain the certainty with which current migration drivers can be characterised.
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