Heart of Punjab: Experiment in school education yet to produce desired result

All experiments in school education by successive governments in Punjab over the past two decades have failed to generate any blueprint for a comprehensive model of improvement in more than 19,000 state government schools.

Former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal had introduced Adarsh Schools in the public-private partnership (PPP) mode during the Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP regime from 2007-17.

Funded in a ratio of 70:30 under the public-private partnership, one Adarsh School for “poor and brilliant students” was supposed to be set up in each block of Punjab.

The previous Congress government under Amarinder Singh put thrust on activity-based learning under the ‘Padho Punjab, Padhao Punjab’ initiative. It aimed at improving basic reading and learning outcomes, particularly at the pre-primary level.

The current government is working on transforming 100 primary government schools into “schools of happiness” and 100 government senior secondary schools into “schools of brilliance”.

However, on the ground, there has been no visible change.

Punjab continues to lack its own education policy till date. More importantly, there has been no evaluation of earlier programmes. All initiatives lose their sheen once a new government comes into power.

Showing no continuity in earlier innovations, Adarsh Schools ran into rough weather with the private sector not coming out to support the programme.

The government project to train teachers for the ‘Padho Punjab, Padao Punjab’ programme lost its relevance once the Congress lost power in the 2022 Assembly poll.

Clearly indicating that the existing staff was ill-equipped, the current government is sending teachers to Finland and principals to Singapore. This showed that teacher training here was outdated.

They are expected to teach fellow colleagues once they return from abroad.

However, there can be no teaching without teachers. Many primary schools are functioning with just one teacher, who performs the impossible task of handling five different classes at a time.

In fact, there are certain schools that do not have even a single teacher and classes are managed with the staff on deputation from other schools.

As many as 810 of the 1,723 high schools do not have a headmaster while 855 of 1,927 senior secondary schools are functioning without a principal. Another cause for concern is the pitiable condition of computer education.

During times of advanced research in artificial intelligence, government schools in Punjab are offering outdated courses with age-old infrastructure. Many schools do have even a single working computer.

Education of girl child is most impacted. Surveys have shown that parents from poorer sections of society took education as a luxury. They preferred sending their children to work at a young age.

The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER)-2024 amply revealed the ground reality. At least, 17 per cent of Class I students could not recognise numbers from 1 to 9. At least, 39.6 per cent of Class VII students and 51.2 per cent of Class V students struggled with division. Only 76.7 per cent of Class VII students could read a Class II-level text.