‘Warring with Warriors’: Fifth Live Session; Says, AAP Schools of Eminence are refurbished Model Schools set up by Congress

CHANDIGARH, September 6: Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring today exposed the fake ‘Sikhya Kranti’ (Education Revolution) of the Aam Aadmi Party government in Punjab, saying, it was trying to claim the credit for the achievements of the previous Congress government, while being casual and careless about education in the state.

In his live interaction during the fifth session of the ‘Warring with Warriors’, the PCC president also revealed that the “Schools of Eminence” claimed to have been opened by the AAP government were actually the Model Schools set up by the Congress government. He said the AAP government only refurbished these schools and renamed them as Schools of Eminence, virtually stealing the credit.  

He revealed that the AAP government had created a fake narrative by falsely inflating the numbers of admissions in the government schools. He said, against the actual admissions of 10-15 students, the AAP government had shown at several places 100 students. He said 80 to 85 students were absentees or fake.

Quoting the Teachers’ Democratic Front, he said, there were 70,000 fake admissions. In fact, in Sangrur district alone, there were reportedly 30 to 40 percent fake admissions shown in government schools. He asked, if the admissions in government schools were so high, why had the total number of students in government schools come down by about 1.5 lakhs in the last year. He said, during the last year, the number of students in government schools was 26,69,000 while in the preceding year it was 28,23,000, which means about 1.5 lakh students left the government schools.

He observed that the matter needs a deeper probe as there are various facilities provided to the students. He pointed out, the facilities would be given against the number claimed by the AAP and asked who is pocketing these benefits. He said, the students are provided uniform, midday meals and scholarships. But when there are just 10 or 15 students against the 100 students shown on record, somebody must be pocketing the benefits of the 85 students, he argued, adding the teachers had flagged the matter but no action had been taken. He said, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and his government owe an answer to the people of Punjab.

The PCC president also revealed that in certain schools some favourite teachers were posted just for convenient posting when there was no need for so many teachers. He said, in one of the schools, there were five teachers for 26 students, while in another school there were two teachers against 60 students.

Warring also questioned the claims of the Education Minister Harjot Bains that the AAP government had raised Punjab to “number one” position in school education. He said, these were actually the figures of the time period between 2017 and 2022 when it was the Congress government in Punjab and one of the AAP MLAs then had rejected this achievement.

Now, the same AAP is so shamelessly claiming the credit for what was achieved by the Congress and opposed by the AAP then.  

Pointing out how casual and careless the AAP government was towards education, he revealed that there were over 18,000 vacancies of teachers in Punjab which had not been filled up. Besides, he added, there were 1113 of 1927 vacancies of principals in the Senior Secondary Schools across Punjab.