Ridiculing the Delhi deputy CM’s atrocious allegation of a political conspiracy of the Centre and the Punjab government in the matter of school education ranking, Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Saturday termed it a clear case of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) crying foul in the face of its imminent wipeout from Punjab in the 2022 Assembly polls.
Reacting to Manisha Sisodia’s allegation of a ‘secret pact’ between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and him (Capt Amarinder), the Chief Minister said the AAP leadership was so obsessed with electoral politics that it saw poll conspiracies even in something as basic as school education.
“Come to Punjab and I will show you around our schools,” said Capt Amarinder to Sisodia, adding that the revamp of the state’s schools was an exercise undertaken by his government as a top priority, and the Performance Grading Index (PGI) 2019-20 released by the Union Education Minister recently reflected the success of those efforts. “If you are really interested in improving the education system of Delhi, maybe you should do a jugalbandi with me, and I will teach you how to manage things better,” the Chief Minister said, responding to Sisodia’s charge of Rs jugalbandi’ between Modi and him (Capt).
From a ranking of 22 on the earlier index that was in place when he took over as Chief Minister, to Number 1 on PGI scale, Punjab’s school education has undergone a massive transformation, said Capt Amarinder. “Your political dialogues cannot undermine this success,” he said, terming Sisodia’s comments as an obvious case of “sour grapes’ since NCR Delhi had scored a poor 6th ranking in the list.
Expressing shock at the AAP leader’s shameful attempt to give a political colour to the excellent outcomes of the hard work and commitment of thousands of school teachers, administrators, education officials etc, Capt Amarinder said it was evident that Arvind Kejriwal’s party was used to seeing everything from the telescope of politics.
The CM said his government had invested in the development of key sectors like education and health in a consistent manner over the past four years. As many as 14000 schools had been converted into smart schools, as part of a focused strategy, comprising launch of pre-primary education, best-in-class digital education infrastructure, innovative teaching methods, administrative reforms, transparency in recruitment and transfer of teachers, etc. Increase in government school enrolment and extraordinary improvement in results were a clear reflection of the success of these measures, he added.
Punjab has topped all the states and UTs by securing 929 marks out of 1000 in the 70 parameters laid down by the Union Government in the PGI ranking. Punjab got cent per cent points (150/150) in the domain of infrastructure and facilities, which included availability of classrooms, labs, toilets, drinking water, and libraries. Punjab has also performed very well in equity (228/230) and access (79/80) domains, comprising inclusion of children from weaker sections in the mainstream, appliances to the special children, enrolment ratio, retention rate, transmission rate and availability of schools.