NEW DELHI: Stating that people who despite having money don’t recruit principals, don’t open new schools or pay salaries to the employees, Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Wednesday said that such “vayan veeron” (statement heros) should not be taken seriously.
Pradhan was replying to a question on Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal’s letter to PM Narendra Modi where the APP leader stated that the condition of 80% of government schools is worse than junkyard during a media briefing. The education minister said that the quality of education in Delhi-government schools even lags behind smaller UTs like Chandigarh.
Slamming Kejriwal for comparing schools to “kabar khana”, Pradhan said that since the AAP government came to power in Delhi, there has been an all-round decline in quality of education. He pointed out that “since 2015 enrolment in Delhi government schools has been on decline, even after seven years’ of coming to power the government has not fulfilled its election promise of 500 model schools and there has been no new school principals appointed.”
Citing Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE) and National Achievement Survey (NAS) data, Pradhan said that Delhi schools have been suffering from quality and governance issues resulting in learning outcomes of Classes III, V, VIII and X students in Delhi-government schools lower than the national average.
“For a State like Delhi, a substantial amount for major development is taken care of by the government of India. To a government which considers education as its brownie point, I will just put forward four points based on facts,” said Pradhan adding that enrolment in Delhi-government schools have been declining since the AAP government came to power in 2015. “It is their own statistics speaking.”
“In 2015 in their election manifesto they promised to set up 500 model schools,” said Pradhan before citing a news report of August 29, 2022 and adding: “Forget 500, during these seven-eight years, through an RTI it has been learnt, they have opened just 63 schools. Their own education department’s website reveals that no new schools have been set up in Delhi as promised.”
Quality is a bigger concern in schools run by the Delhi government, said Pradhan. “They claim that they have the best education system in the world. In consultation with all State governments including Delhi government, NAS was conducted, where from 1602 Delhi schools to 10,000 teachers participated and 65,000 students based on random sampling were surveyed.
In all these four verticals, Delhi-government schools lagged significantly behind national average. In Class III Delhi’s score was 42 as against the national average of 54. In Class V national average was 48, Delhi scored 37. In Class VIII national average was 38, Delhi got 37. Similarly, in Class X the national average was 40, Delhi scored 39. Even Chandigarh has better scores than Delhi in terms of quality.”
Pradhan also said that “not a single new teacher or new principal has been recruited in 2020 and 2021. This is based on UDISE data shared by the State governments themselves. And today I got to know from the newspapers that government employees in Punjab have not been paid their salaries for the last six days.”
Pradhan was replying to a question on Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal’s letter to PM Narendra Modi where the APP leader stated that the condition of 80% of government schools is worse than junkyard during a media briefing. The education minister said that the quality of education in Delhi-government schools even lags behind smaller UTs like Chandigarh.
Slamming Kejriwal for comparing schools to “kabar khana”, Pradhan said that since the AAP government came to power in Delhi, there has been an all-round decline in quality of education. He pointed out that “since 2015 enrolment in Delhi government schools has been on decline, even after seven years’ of coming to power the government has not fulfilled its election promise of 500 model schools and there has been no new school principals appointed.”
Citing Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE) and National Achievement Survey (NAS) data, Pradhan said that Delhi schools have been suffering from quality and governance issues resulting in learning outcomes of Classes III, V, VIII and X students in Delhi-government schools lower than the national average.
“For a State like Delhi, a substantial amount for major development is taken care of by the government of India. To a government which considers education as its brownie point, I will just put forward four points based on facts,” said Pradhan adding that enrolment in Delhi-government schools have been declining since the AAP government came to power in 2015. “It is their own statistics speaking.”
“In 2015 in their election manifesto they promised to set up 500 model schools,” said Pradhan before citing a news report of August 29, 2022 and adding: “Forget 500, during these seven-eight years, through an RTI it has been learnt, they have opened just 63 schools. Their own education department’s website reveals that no new schools have been set up in Delhi as promised.”
Quality is a bigger concern in schools run by the Delhi government, said Pradhan. “They claim that they have the best education system in the world. In consultation with all State governments including Delhi government, NAS was conducted, where from 1602 Delhi schools to 10,000 teachers participated and 65,000 students based on random sampling were surveyed.
In all these four verticals, Delhi-government schools lagged significantly behind national average. In Class III Delhi’s score was 42 as against the national average of 54. In Class V national average was 48, Delhi scored 37. In Class VIII national average was 38, Delhi got 37. Similarly, in Class X the national average was 40, Delhi scored 39. Even Chandigarh has better scores than Delhi in terms of quality.”
Pradhan also said that “not a single new teacher or new principal has been recruited in 2020 and 2021. This is based on UDISE data shared by the State governments themselves. And today I got to know from the newspapers that government employees in Punjab have not been paid their salaries for the last six days.”