10 meritorious schools fail to admit even a single student

Karam Prakash

Tribune News Service

Patiala, November 3

The 10 government meritorious schools — started in 2016 for quality education for poor and meritorious Students of Punjab — couldn’t admit even a single student over the past 1.5 years.

The authorities blatantly blamed the COVID pandemic for zero admission. However, the process of new admission and online classes in other non-meritorious government schools continued despite the pandemic. Ironically, around 270 teachers of the 10 meritorious schools, in the face of no new admission and online classes for the students of meritorious schools, had been deputed to other government schools in their respective districts

The last batch of students was admitted in 2019 and since then no admission has been made. It has been learned that though the managing body of the meritorious school — Society for Promotion of Quality Education — has conducted entrance tests in October for the 2021-22 session, the results, however, have not been declared so far.

Given half of the session is almost over, the students, if admitted even this month, would have only a few months to prepare for board and national level entrance exams. Notably, around 126 students of the meritorious schools have cleared the National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) for admission in medical colleges this year.

A teacher of the meritorious school, pleading anonymity, said, “If all other government schools continued teaching through online mode, why didn’t the meritorious school follow suit?”

IPS Malhotra, OSD to Director General School Education, said that results would be announced in the coming days. He said, “We couldn’t conduct the entrance test last year, due to COVID. Besides, meritorious schools were converted into COVID centers. “

He admitted that they were a little late for the admission of the students for the ongoing session because meritorious schools were residential ones, and, therefore COVID appropriate guidelines were not possible.

Kulwinder Singh Bath, president, meritorious school teacher union, said, “Meritorious students of poor and marginalized families are suffering — evidently owing to the government’s lack of concern towards these schools. The apathy of the government is evident by the fact that teachers of the meritorious schools have not been regularized despite several assurances by the education minister.”

Education Minister Pargat Singh and Education Secretary Ajoy Sharma could not be contacted despite repeated attempts.

Number of admissions seekers lesser than seats

As many as 9,000 students against 9,200 seats are said to have appeared for the entrance examination for admission to 10 meritorious schools this year. Officials said they, if seats remain vacant, would lower the pass percentage of the admission test and conduct one more entrance test to fill the seats.