CHANDIGARH: Ridiculing the Aam Aadmi Party-led Punjab Government for sending school teachers and principals to Finland and Singapore for training, the Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Punjab Assembly, Partap Singh Bajwa, on Monday said that the government should fill the vacant principals' and teachers' posts before sending them abroad.
Senior Congress Leader Bajwa said that 856 (44%) of the 1927 senior secondary schools in the state are without regular principals. According to another media report from last year, out of the 90 primary schools near the International Border in the border districts, 28 have no teachers.
"The standard of education in the government schools has deteriorated under his government. In Sangrur, the home district of Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, 60 percent of the senior secondary schools don’t have a principal. It is utterly shameful for the Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, who often boasts about being the son of a teacher, " Bajwa added.
Qadian legislator Bajwa said that the AAP government has failed miserably to improve the basic infrastructure in the schools. The majority of the government schools in the rural areas, in particular, lack proper sanitation facilities. The AAP government needs to set its priorities right. Instead of sending teachers and principals abroad, it should improve basic infrastructure and fill the required vacancies.
"In its stubbornness to replicate the faulty education model of Delhi, the AAP government in Punjab ruined the state's own education model that once elicited commendations throughout the country. Punjab’s education model in the previous Congress regime grabbed several national-level awards, " Bajwa stated.
In a statement, Bajwa said that children belonging to the weaker sections of society study in government schools. Education is the only way to bring them out of poverty and usher in a new way of life. What kind of future the AAP government is thinking of building with such a poor standard of education, where schools are running without teachers and principals? The AAP government seems to have crossed all the limits of absurdities.