`Case of sour grapes’, Says Punjab CM on Sisodia’s atrocious allegation on school education ranking

Chandigarh: Ridiculing the Delhi deputy CM’s atrocious allegation of a political conspiracy of the Centre and the Punjab government in the matter of school education ranking, Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Saturday termed it a clear case of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) crying foul in the face of its imminent wipeout from Punjab in the 2022 Assembly polls.
 
In a hard-hitting reaction to Manisha Sisodia’s allegation of a ‘secret pact’ between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and him (Captain Amarinder), the Chief Minister said the AAP leadership was so obsessed with electoral politics that it saw poll conspiracies even in something as basic as school education. The fact was that AAP, which had failed to make a dent in Punjab’s political arena over the past over 4 years, beginning with its poor performance in the 2017 elections, could see the rout which it was facing in 2022, he added.
 
“Come to Punjab and I will show you around our schools,” said Captain Amarinder to Sisodia, adding that the revamp of the state’s schools was an exercise undertaken by his government as a top priority, and the Performance Grading Index (PGI) 2019-20 released by the Union Education Minister recently reflected the success of those efforts. “If you are really interested in improving the education system of Delhi, maybe you should do a jugalbandi with me, and I will teach you how to manage things better,” the Chief Minister said, in a derisive response to Sisodia’s charge of `jugalbandi’ between Modi and him (Captain Amarinder).
 
From a ranking of 22 on the earlier index that was in place when he took over as Chief Minister, to Number 1 on PGI scale, Punjab’s school education has undergone a massive transformation, said Captain Amarinder. “Your political dialogues cannot undermine this success,” he said, terming Sisodia’s comments as an obvious case of  “sour grapes’ since NCR Delhi had scored a poor 6th ranking in the list.
 
Expressing shock at the AAP leader’s shameful attempt to give a political colour to the excellent outcomes of the hard work and commitment of thousands of school teachers, administrators, education officials etc, Captain Amarinder said it was evident that Arvind Kejriwal’s party was used to seeing everything from the telescope of politics. Little wonder then that Delhi continued to be deprived of even basic amenities like education, health, safe drinking water even after six years of Kejriwal rule, he quipped.
 
Pointing to the sad and sorry spectacle of people gasping for breath at the peak of the second surge of Covid in Delhi, the Chief Minister said the much-touted Kejriwal model of governance was nothing but a hype created by the media, which was benefitting from the massive advertising budgets of the AAP government in the national capital. From the highly publicized Mohalla clinics to the school education system, the entire model of the Delhi government had been thoroughly exposed for nothing more than a hollow claim being perpetuated by AAP’s media and social media machinery, he said. Kejriwal was so busy promoting his image that he seemed to have forgotten to make any investments on the ground, said Captain Amarinder.
 
The Chief Minister said his government had, in contrast, invested in the development of key sectors like education and health in a consistent manner over the past four years. As many as 14000 schools had been converted into smart schools, as part of a focused strategy, comprising
Launch of  pre-primary education, best-in-class digital education infrastructure, innovative teaching methods, administrative reforms, transparency in recruitment and transfer of teachers, etc. Increase in government school enrolment and extraordinary improvement in results were a clear reflection of the success of these measures, he added.
 
Punjab has topped all the states and UTs by  securing 929 marks out of 1000 in the 70 parameters laid down by the Union Government in the PGI ranking. Punjab got cent per cent points (150/150) in the domain of infrastructure and facilities, which included availability of classrooms, labs, toilets, drinking water, and libraries. Punjab has also performed very well in equity (228/230) and access (79/80) domains, comprising inclusion of children from weaker sections in the mainstream, appliances to the special children, enrolment ratio, retention rate, transmission rate and availability of schools.

SISODIA'S DESPERATION UNDERSTANDABLE, PAID CLAMOUR ABOUT DELHI SCHOOLS BY AAP EXPOSED: VIJAY INDER SINGLA
Chandigarh/ Sangrur:     Reacting sharply to the utterances of the Delhi Education Minister, Manish Sisodia, Mr. Vijay Inder Singla said that the desperation of Manish Sisodia was quite visible and understandable as paid clamour about the rosy picture of Delhi Schools in media by the AAP government had comprehensible been exposed.
           "While Punjab has got the top rank in the Performance Grading Index of schools among all the states and Union Territories, Delhi has not been placed in top five states/UTs. It has miserably been placed on sixth position", said the Education Minister Vijay Inder Singla while condemning Sisodia's desperate effort to politicise the issue with his illogical statement based on false accusations.
           "Delhi Education Minister has blatantly been telling lies just to get political mileage keeping in view the coming elections in Punjab. But, for us “Reforms in Education" is a sacred issue and we never tried to use it as a tool for electoral battle as being done by AAP", further said Singla while adding that Punjab achieved this rank on merits. He also invited him to Punjab to learn from the Congress government to learn how to improve level of education in government schools.
Mr. Singla said that the teachers and other staff of the education department has also worked hard to bring the state on the top position. He added that it also helped to increase around 15 percent enrolment in government schools as in the matter of results, the government schools have also outshined the private schools.
The cabinet minister added that Punjab has emerged as a leading state in rejuvenating school education by being a pioneer in bringing in infrastructural development , qualitative improvement and complying with RTE norms in government schools.
          Lambasting Delhi Education Minister for his false statements regarding hobnobbing with the Modi government for achieving the PGI rank, closure of 800 schools, privatisation of education, Mr. Singla said the ranking was achieved as per the parameters laid down by the Union government and these were same for all the states and UTs. “The enrollment in Punjab schools has been increased considerably for the consequent two years. The trust being reposed by the people in government schools could easily be gauged from the fact that more than three lakh private school students have shifted to government schools to avail of the benefits of state of the art infrastructral as well”, said Mr. Singla.