Announced with much fanfare, the Aam Aadmi Party government's flagship programme of creating “Schools of Eminence” (SoE) by upgrading 117 existing state-run senior secondary schools, is set to hit the first roadblock on April 1, when they are supposed to get functional with the start of the new academic session. Proposed with “zero vacancies”, the chosen 117 schools have nearly 20 per cent of the sanctioned teaching posts and nearly half of the non-teaching posts vacant. While announcing the scheme, the government had underlined that the Schools of Eminence, that aim to “re-imagine education for holistic development of children and prepare them to be responsible citizens”, will be based on five broad pillars. They include human resource management — teachers and non-teaching staff — under which qualified, able and visionary principals take charge of these schools. Under this, the government, in the scheme document, has proposed ‘zero’ vacancy in teaching and non-teaching posts. As per the records available with the education department, currently the chosen 117 schools are struggling with a large number of vacancies. Of 5,303 sanctioned posts of teachers, 987 are vacant. Similarly, out of 1,336 sanctioned posts of non-teaching cadre, 606 are vacant. A closer look at the data reveals that the posts of 24 principals, 295 lecturers including 50 for English, 12 for economics, 28 for commerce, 25 for physics, 47 for Punjabi, 26 for political science, 22 for biology, 26 for physical education, 21 for history, 11 for math, two for sociology, three for music, two each for chemistry & home science, three for fine arts, five for geography and 10 for Hindi are are lying vacant. The scheme underlines that these schools, catering to Class 9 to 12 students, will offer the four main streams — non-medical, medical, commerce and humanities. The scene on the ground, however, is different. The science stream is currently not functional in 22 Schools of Eminence. Out of these 22, at least three have land less than one acre. The GSSS Division No. III, Ludhiana is situated on Waqf Board land while the GSSS Mandaur (Patiala) does not fulfill student strength criteria. At 34 Schools of Eminence, the commerce stream is not functional, while 30 have been identified where no high or middle school is situated for admission of new students in Class 6. The existing schools, which have now been upgraded as Schools of Eminence, will only take students for classes 9 and 11 and in that case, suggestions have been made to upgrade 29 primary schools near them up to middle classes. After facing this situation, now government has issued instructions to the District Education Officers to admit students of Classes 7, 8, 10, and 12 too in these schools if infrastructure is already available. However, there is no mention of admission to Class 6 in these schools. The online registration for admissions to these upgraded schools, for the academic year 2023-24, has already been done. All class 8 and 10 students from schools in Punjab were eligible to apply for admission. Each School of Eminence is open for admission to students from schools within a cluster of 40 km radius. They are supposed to fill 75 per cent of the students from government-run schools and remaining 25 per cent from other schools. Also, at the moment, the government is only upgrading four schools into Schools of Eminence in Amritsar district on a priority basis and the remaining will be upgraded in the coming financial year. Kuldip Singh Daurka, general secretary, Government Teachers' Union, said that the conversion of existing schools into Schools of Eminence will not change anything on the ground unless the vacancies of teaching posts are filled. Also, the required infrastructure for various streams, including laboratories, must be provided with immediate effect. He asked why the government was adopting pick-and-choose criteria to create Schools of Eminence instead of treating all the state-run schools in the same manner. “If government fills all the vacancies of the teachers and makes them responsible for the results of the students, and provides proper labs, all the schools in Punjab will turn into Schools of Eminence,” he said, adding that “our governments think that filling all posts would be an extra financial burden”. Moreover, the students of Classes 6 will face problems as no fresh admission to this class would take place in Schools of Eminence, Daurka said. He said allowing admission to other classes (7, 8, 10, and 12) in these schools, “if the infrastructure is available”, is “a ridiculous move” as admissions to all classes from 6 onwards have already been taking place in these schools. The scheme has already faced protests with the Democratic Teachers Front (DTF) questioning the relevance of Schools of Eminence. DTF state president Vikram Dev Singh Thursday sent a 'Question Letter' to Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and announced that they will hold a protest on April 23 in front of his Sangrur residence. “Discriminatory education in the name of 'School of Eminence' is being promoted in the state,” Vikram Dev said, adding that the setting up of a “school island” within a radius of 40 km is the concept of bringing students to school instead of taking the school to every child. “This is a conspiracy to deprive a large number of students of education,” he said, adding that they will send questions regarding the Schools of Eminence to the legislators from April 1 to April 7. While Director General (School Education) Vinay Bublani is on leave, Education Minister Harjot Singh Bains could not be contacted for his comments.
