Check facts regarding 'Learning Levels' of Delhi schools before politicising the issue, Singla advises Sisodia

Punjab Education Minister, Vijay Inder Singla, on Sunday advised his Delhi counterpart, Manish Sisodia to first check facts regarding the status of "Learning Level and Quality" parameter in the " Performance Grading Index" released by the Union government before stooping so low to unnecessarily politicise the issue.

"The Delhi Education Minister, Sisodia and his political party has become so scared with the achievement of Punjab in the field of school education that he has started misleading people with totally false and illogical statements", said the state education minister while adding that Manish Sisodia had been saying that Punjab had performed badly in "Learning Level and Quality" in the recent "Performance Grading Index".

"But, the fact is that if Punjab's performance is poor then performance of Delhi schools under the same parameter is even poorer as while Delhi has scored 124 marks , the score of Punjab is 126 in the National Achievement Survey conducted in 2017", said Singla. And even if Sisodia wanted to politicise the issue, then he should have verified facts, the education minister added. The fact is, when National Achievement Survey was conducted in 2017, AAP government in Delhi had already completed more than two years in power and Congress government in Punjab was just a few months old at that time.

Besides, as National achievement Survey could not be conducted in November 2020 due to COVID-19 pandemic, hence Punjab had to be satisfied with the old performance. But, this time Punjab was fully prepared and had the NAS been conducted, the Punjab schools in "Learning Level and Quality" would have also achieved top rank in this parameter too.

Punjab has never given political tinge to its movement to bring in qualitative improvement in Education. Last time, when Delhi bagged fourth rank then no accusing finger was raised on the authenticity of the "Performance Grading Index" . Even now, Delhi Education Minister, Manish Sisodia has been raising fingers on Punjab only and not on four other states /UTs - Chandigarh, Tamilnadu, Kerala , Andaman & Nicobar, which are also ahead of Delhi in the ranking, just because AAP is eyeing to get political mileage in the ensuing Assembly polls in Punjab by its misleading propaganda, said Singla.

Moreover, it is worth mentioning here that in Delhi all the 2000 Primary schools are being run by MCD. There are three Corporations and all have BJP majority and BJP Mayor. As many as 1031 High and Senior Secondary Schools are being run by Delhi Government led by AAP. On the other hand, there are 19000 government schools including 13000 primary and 6000 High and Senior Secondary, which are exclusively run by Punjab government.

Under the drive to bring in qualitative improvement, the Punjab government in collaboration with teachers and philanthropists here and abroad has succeeded in converting the drive into mass movement, which has resulted in sprucing up of the infrastructure as well as quality education facilities in government schools. The revolutionary changes in government schools as well as trust being reposed by the public could easily be gauged from the huge increase in enrollment especially shifting of students from private to government schools, further added the Education Minister while saying that the Delhi Education Minister, Manish Sisodia, in an affidavit submitted in a court case about two years ago had stated that the learning level of 70 % government schools in Delhi was poor.