My schools vs your schools: Punjab politics enters the classroom

As part of PM-SHRI, the Centre is set to spend Rs 27,000 crore over five years to upgrade schools across the country to “showcase the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP)”. For Punjab, the Centre identified 241 schools. The AAP government, almost immediately, refused to be part of the project, leaving it open to attack by Opposition parties, which have said Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann should not “play politics at the cost of the state’s development” and not “deny what is the state’s right from the Centre”.

It was in 2014 that the Akali Dal-BJP government launched its school project, envisaging 10 first-of-their-kind “government residential schools for meritorious students”. These schools were to provide free education, boarding, lodging and free coaching for competitive exams to Class 11 and 12 government school students who had scored above 80% in Class 10.

After coming to power in 2017, Congress Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and then Education Secretary Krishan Kumar oversaw a programme to convert nearly 19,000 government schools into “smart schools”, with both government and community funding.

The AAP government plan, a copy of a successful one by its ministry in Delhi, is to create 117 ‘Schools of Eminence’ — essentially “specialized schools for Classes 9 to 12, with equal focus on academics, sports and skills”.

PM-SHRI schools, as per the Centre, will be “green schools” where the NEP will be followed in “true spirit”, and students would be “rooted to the heritage of India and values of Bharat”.

Punjab Education Minister Harjot Singh Bains says they said no to the PM-SHRI scheme “because we already have many projects running, and our focus is on our Schools of Eminence”. The state has also cited objections of some teacher unions, who have raised apprehensions about “saffronisation of education in Punjab” under the scheme.

But in this, the AAP has little support.

The Akali Dal attacks the AAP government’s Schools of Eminence as “old wine in a new bottle” and a “copy” of the residential schools it had started. Former education minister and Akali Dal spokesperson Daljit Singh Cheema calls every scheme launched in the state after their government’s “mere aesthetics and copies”. “Merely painting gates and classrooms in colours and drawing cartoons does not make ‘smart schools’. What matters is improving the quality of education. Be it the AAP or the Congress, both are hell-bent on destroying residential schools just because the name of Badal is associated with it… Instead of focusing on the infrastructure that is already in place, new ones are being created to satisfy political egos.”

Asking the Centre as well to support the infrastructure that the states already have, Cheema says, “When it comes to education, one should be open to adopting better models cutting across party lines.”

Leader of the Opposition and Congress MLA Partap Singh Bajwa says the AAP government’s refusal to PM-SHRI reflects the “immaturity and childish behaviour of Bhagwant Mann”. “Whatever we get from the Centre should be welcomed with open arms. On the one hand, they say Punjab is facing a financial crisis, and on the other, they are refusing whatever is coming from the Centre,” Bajwa says, adding that, similarly, more than Rs 600 crore due to the state towards healthcare was stuck after the state rebranded the Centre’s Ayushman Bharat clinics as Aam Aadmi Clinics.

“The Rural Development Fund (RDF) allocation of Rs 4,000 crore is also stuck because he [Mann] boycotted a NITI Aayog meeting… If his [Mann’s] photos can be displayed on Aam Aadmi Clinics, what is the problem with schools having PM-SHRI written on them, so long as we get the funds for infrastructure?” Bajwa says.

Former Congress CM turned BJP leader Amarinder Singh trashes the ‘Delhi Model of Education’ as “failed”, and adds how it could replace one in Punjab that is “already successful”. He adds that the Congress too is not defending the “Punjab model” under him as he had left the party. “The Congress is deliberately ignoring all the achievements between 2017 and September 2021, before I resigned,” he said after Punjab excelled in last year’s National Achievement Survey (NAS) rankings.

Punjab BJP president Sunil Jakhar, who himself defected from the Congress in May 2022, attributes the good performance of Punjab schools to “the education revolution under the tenure of Captain Amarinder Singh and education secretary Krishan Kumar”. “What this AAP government led by Mann wants is deliberate confrontation with the Centre on every single issue. The PM-SHRI scheme is not for Punjab, but the entire country… Schools are the last thing over which politics should be played.”

Incidentally, data from the time shows Punjab outperforming Delhi in several national surveys, including the NAS, the Performance Grading Index, and the Foundation Learning Survey. However, possibly because the data concerns the Congress government, CM Mann and his ministers have been downplaying this performance and saying that “the reality on the ground is in contrast to survey rankings”.

Asserting that what Punjab needs is “Kejriwal’s Delhi Model of Education”, Mann recently said the Congress government’s “so-called smart schools” were a fraud. He added, “The Delhi government has raised the confidence of its students. Likewise, Punjab will take its children out of the rat race of high percentages, and focus on practical education that will help them in life.”