JALANDHAR: Punjab’s education reforms in the government schools have paid off in three years, taking the state from the 22nd to the top position on the Performance Grade Index.
In the rankings released by the Union education ministry, Punjab has the highest rating points of 929 out of 1,000.
Out of the five domains, it topped in four, which for the fifth, the ministry counted the marks of 2017.
Punjab started at 22nd in the year 2017-18, improved to 13th position in 2018-19, and now it’s the best performer.
The performance of the states was judged on 70 parameters and Punjab is highest scorer in ‘access’ (79/80), ‘infrastructure and facilities’ (150/150), ‘equity’, (228/230) and ‘governance processes’ (346/360).
The only domain where its scores have come down is ‘learning outcome and quality’, where it got 126 out of 180.
This is for which the 2017 National Achievement Survey results were used.
Punjab education secretary Krishan Kumar said: “Another NAS was due in 2020 but the central government had to postpone it due to Covid-19.
We continue to improve the learning outcome and quality.
In the last year’s online Punjab Assessment Survey (PAS), which takes the NAS parameters, we had improved 28 to 38%.
An NAS in 2020 would have rated us higher in this domain, too.” For ‘infrastructure and facilities’, where Punjab has scored 150 out of 150, the credit goes to the Smart School Policy under which the state encouraged teachers to involve the local communities and NRIs.
The education department says that Punjab has turned 12,976 of its 19,298 government schools smart and converted 54% of the classrooms into smart classrooms.
Punjab education minister Vijay Inder Singla said: “We kept the transfers, promotions, recruitments, and procurements transparent and based on merit.
We linked the transfers to performance and took the applications online to end ‘sifarish’ (recommendation), corruption, and the hassle of running to different offices.
If teachers take care of students, we take care of them.
A bigger challenge is to stay on top.” In the current academic session enrolment in government schools has increased by 1.51 lakh and out of these 87% have shifted from private schools.
Former state leader of opposition H S Phoolka posted a video on Facebook, congratulating the education department on surpassing even Delhi.
He thanked Punjabi NRIs for building school infrastructure.
In the current academic session, the enrolment in Punjab’s government schools has increased by 1.51 lakh.
Of these children, 87% shifted from private schools.