Education revolution has begun in Punjab, says Kejriwal after inaugurating ‘School of Eminence’

PTI, Sep 13, 2023, 8:49 PM IST

Source: PTI / File

Amritsar: Aam Aadmi Party national convener Arvind Kejriwal inaugurated a ‘School of Eminence’ in Punjab’s Amritsar on Wednesday and said an education revolution has begun in the state.

Kejriwal, who is also the chief minister of Delhi, was joined by his Punjab counterpart Bhagwant Mann at the ceremony. This is the first ‘School of Eminence’ in Punjab, an official statement said.

”An education revolution has started in Punjab. The school which we have inaugurated today is not an ordinary school. I can say with challenge that any big private school will not have the facilities which are there in this school,” said Kejriwal while addressing a public rally here after the inauguration event.

He said there are 20,000 government schools in the state and each one of them will see improvement under the AAP regime in terms of better infrastructure and other facilities.

Earlier, government schools had a shortage of benches, children sitting on mats, broken walls, leaking roofs, unclean toilets, no boundary walls, and no security guards. But all this is going to change now, the AAP supremo, who is on a three-day visit to Punjab, said.

An amount of nearly Rs 1,600 crore has been given by the state government for the purchase of benches, building boundary balls where there are none, having 10,000 new classrooms and other infrastructural purposes in government schools.

Kejriwal said people will soon get their children shifted from private schools to government schools.

About the school he inaugurated, he said it has modern infrastructure, gyms, playgrounds, and fully equipped labs.

Many government school teachers told me today that they have enrolled their children in this school after taking them out of private schools, he said.

A girl student met me today and said her father is a rickshaw puller and her mother works as a maid. She wants to become a doctor and now this school is going to give wings to her dreams, he said.

Students from poor backgrounds too have dreams of becoming doctors, engineers, and lawyers, he said, adding Mann and state’s Education Minister Harjot Singh Bains are making several efforts to help children realise their dreams.

”I am happy that this education revolution has started from the holy land of Amritsar with the blessings of the Gurus. We had promised that it is our responsibility to give a good education to children. We had given a guarantee in this regard and we are fulfilling it,” he said.

Bains said the schools will be a harbinger of a bright future for the students. He said the AAP had promised to the people of Punjab that government schools would be no less than private ones.

The ‘School of Eminence’ has smart classrooms, modern infrastructure and labs, and playgrounds having facilities for various sports, Bains said.

The AAP government plans to have 116 such schools across Punjab and develop them as centres of excellence for the students of Classes 9 to 12.

Kejriwal said already one lakh students have filled out forms showing interest in admission to Schools of Eminence.

In 2017-18 before AAP came to power, the Class 10 pass percentage of students in the State Board was 58 per cent, which increased to 97 per cent this year while 92 per cent of students passed Class 12 this year as against 68 per cent five years ago, he said.

Kejriwal said 600-700 Mohalla Clinics have opened in Punjab where medicines and treatment are free. Now, the state government is planning to upgrade civil hospitals by equipping them with modern machinery, he said.

Without naming anyone, Kejriwal said, ”It has been 75 years (since Independence), I don’t remember any party talking about building schools, good hospitals…even now they don’t say so, their intentions are bad”.

”Recently, a film Jawan has been released, it is a good film, you must watch it. You must have heard Shah Rukh Khan’s dialogue and he says they will come and seek vote before polls in the name of religion, caste but confront them and ask these parties what they will do for education, treatment facilities,” he said.

”I want to tell Shah Rukh Khan sahab that in the entire country, the AAP is the only party which works for good education and health facilities to people,” he said.

”If we could bring education and health revolution, why could other parties not do it in 75 years,” he said while adding they remained busy only in accumulating wealth.

”We have plugged leakages and every penny is used for people’s welfare,” he said.

Training guns at the previous regimes in Punjab, he said, Captain Amarinder Singh of Congress and the Badals of SAD used to say that the government was in debt.

But when the AAP is doing so much work in the health and education sector and giving free power, these parties are left surprised and wonder where we are getting money for this development, he said, adding there is no dearth of funds, but previous regimes had looted Punjab.

On the issue of drug menace, he said previous parties that ruled Punjab were involved in drug smuggling. I don’t need to take names, everyone knows, he said.

We will not spare anyone who destroys the lives of our youth, he asserted.

Kejriwal also reiterated his opposition to the ‘One Nation, One Election’ campaign of the BJP-led government at the Centre.

”These days they (BJP) have come with ‘One Nation, One Election’ but you should never let it happen. What does a leader fear, it is the election. At the time of Nagar Nigam, Panchayat, Assembly and Parliament elections, leaders come to seek votes from you. But If elections are held at one time, they will not show their face for four-and-a-half years,” he said.