Shillong, August 12: Meghalaya Chief Minister, Conrad K Sangma, today, attended Ascent 2026, a seminar on building an ecosystem for success in competitive exams of UPSC and other state and national competitive exams.
The CM-Aspire cheques were also distributed during the occasion at a program held at MATI Campus, Mawdiangdiang, Shillong. Also present Director General, MATI, Cyril Diengdoh and Director, MATI, Swapnil Tembe.
In his address, Chief Minister, Conrad K Sangma, congratulating MATI on organizing the event said, “This is a very noble and important step to give a direction to our vision of achieving success in the UPSC and other competitive exams,”.
He also added that the state does not lack the talent but informed that the ecosystem of bringing these talents together and providing them with the guidance and support was not there. He highlighted the success of the STAR program in Sports that identified top athletes among 30,000 youths with an aim to create top athletes that can compete nationally and internationally.
He also shared the transformation of these identified athletes through proper education, nutrition and training aiming for Olympic medal success by 2036. Similarly, he said that the CM-Aspire aims to support UPSC aspirants for providing the ecosystem that will help them successfully crack the examinations at different levels by providing them the guidance, training and financial support.
The Chief Minister also stressed on the importance of setting goals and a team to convert the vision into practical steps and actions to achieve success and stated, “We need to have goals and targets with a clear vision of what we want to achieve.”
On leadership and governance in Meghalaya, the Chief Minister explained about the thought process behind governance, likening it to an infinite game with ongoing goals. He discussed the role of political leadership in creating a thought process, vision and structure it with policies emphasizing on the need of bureaucrats and officials to add their capacity and expertise to make the policies actionable. He also stressed on the need of continuous monitoring and adaptation process in governance to ensure success.
To the audience that was mostly comprised of aspirants and students besides the teachers and parents, the Chief Minister shared his personal reflections and lessons learned on failure, resilience and on having a clear purpose.
He encouraged the young aspirants to search within themselves to find their true motivations and goals and stressed on the importance of passion and dedication in achieving long term success.
On building an ecosystem for success the Chief Minister spoke on the need to create a culture of innovation, sports and entrepreneurship and also mentioned about the importance of having supportive ecosystem for competitive examinations and other aspirations. He shared passionately the vision of having Meghalaya youth contribute to nation building including potential future leaders in high-level government positions.
In conclusion, the Chief Minister, invited suggestions and feedback from the audience to improve the CM-Aspire program acknowledging that nothing is perfect and there is always room for improvement. “To the young aspirants and students do not give up without trying. Success or failure is not in our hands but to regret that we have not tried and given our best efforts is definitely in our hands,” he said.
Director, MATI, Swapnil Tembe in his address discussed on the challenges and strategies for improving UPSC examination performance in Meghalaya.
The Chief Minister and the dignitaries also distributed the CM-Aspire cheques during the occasion. Seven candidates who had cleared the UPSC Civil Services Preliminary Examinations were given cheques of 50000 each. The Chief Minister also inaugurated the Digital Learning Lab of the Meghalaya Administrative Training Institute during the occasion.
