Rajya Sabha data questions AAP’s education claims: Minister

Fresh data presented in the Rajya Sabha has triggered a sharp political exchange over Delhi’s education policy, with Education Minister Ashish Sood alleging the previous AAP government’s much-publicised “education revolution” focused on improving statistics rather than supporting students.

Reacting to the parliamentary reply, Sood said, “It has now become completely clear that the previous AAPDa government’s much-touted ‘education revolution’ was not a policy aimed at nurturing children’s futures, but rather a strategy to polish statistics.”

He said the problem was raised not by the BJP, but by AAP’s own Rajya Sabha MP, Swati Maliwal, who questioned whether students failing Class IX were being shifted in large numbers to the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) to artificially boost school performance.

Sood added, “Today the people of Delhi can clearly see the reality of the previous ‘AAPDa’ government’s education policy. Notably, it is not a BJP leader but ‘AAPDa’s’ own Rajya Sabha MP, Swati Maliwal, who has exposed it by raising this question in Parliament — whether the large-scale shifting of students who failed Class IX to NIOS was truly about giving them a second chance or merely a way to artificially improve school results.”

According to the written reply by the Ministry of Education, over 3.20 lakh students failed Class IX in Delhi Government schools over the past five years. The year-wise data shows 31,541 failures in 2020–21, 28,548 in 2021–22, 88,421 in 2022–23, 1,01,344 in 2023–24 and 70,296 in 2024–25.

During the same period, more than 71,000 students were admitted to NIOS, including 29,436 admissions in 2022–23 alone.

Commenting on the figures, Sood said, “When even an AAP MP is compelled to ask whether children are being pushed out of the system to inflate performance statistics, the truth of that so-called model becomes evident on its own.” He added that while NIOS can serve as an alternative system, “the figures clearly indicate that it was not used as a support mechanism, but as a side lane to divert students out of the mainstream system.” He also said that “MP Swati Maliwal’s question is absolutely valid.”

Responding to the allegations, the Aam Aadmi Party dismissed the claims, saying, “The Education Minister of Delhi needs to educate himself first. The allegation of pushing students who failed Class 9 to NIOS is factually illogical.”

AAP argued that “out of 3.2 lakh students, only 71,000 students joined NIOS during the five-year period, which is just 22 per cent,” and maintained that “these students opted for NIOS voluntarily so that they did not have to repeat the same class.” The party further said, “Had the government been pushing them to ‘polish statistics,’ as alleged by the BJP government’s Education Minister, why were only 22 per cent of students pushed and not all 100 per cent?”