Deputy Chief Minister & Education Minister, Mr. Manish Sisodia, on Wednesday Nov 29, threw open a challenge to all the government’s in the country to come ahead and compete with the education revolution in Delhi.
He also challenged the BJP ruled MCDs to have a comparison between the schools of Delhi Government and those run by the MCDs. He said this will ultimately benefit the students of Delhi providing them with good schools.
“I challenge the MCDs and also governments of other states ruled by other political parties to compete with the work done in education sector by our government in Delhi. Let’s start today and then compare after an year or two,” said the Education Minister of Delhi.
He further added, “I am very happy that ‘Education’ is being discussed by the politicians who keep discussing issues Shamshan and Kabristaan. We said when we entered politics that we are here to change politics, and look how they have been forced to talk over education and schools”.
“The only agenda these two political parties (Congress & BJP) had on education was to decide how many crores in bribe to be taken for giving recognition to private schools & colleges, or to lobby for land to private schools, or how to pocket heavy commissions in admissions, or how to pocket funds in schemes like Mid-Day meals etc. Be it a Congress ruled state or a BJP ruled state, Govt schools are being shut down, & private schools are increasing day by day, their fee is increasing day by day. All over the country, parents are frustrated over arbitrary fee hikes in private schools. There is no transparency in EWS admissions in private schools in any of the states,” said Mr. Sisodia.
Education for these political parties was limited to these. For the first time, they have come to data related to education. It’s heartening news for me that the two big political parties of the nation which have governments in many states, are at least talking on education. The Chief Minister and we all have repeatedly said that we have come to change politics, he added.
He further said, the same was proved on the issue of red beacons on politicians’ cars. When we stripped red beacons off politicians & bureaucrats’ cars in Delhi, national politics was forced to decide on the same line. Four-five years back when we started talking on wide-spread corruption, some people thought how can the political discourse shift from caste & religion to issues like corruption & education. But it happened. I’m sure that in the coming years, education will become a topic in national politics.
The Deputy CM said that both the BJP and the Congress did nothing for the education sector and rather played in the hands of the private school lobby. Previous governments gave lands for private schools, while we don’t get land for government schools, he said.
“We changed the way education sector worked in Delhi. The government schools have gone through a visible change. The schools which were dilapidated and were not maintained ever get whitewashed every year now, drinking water & sanitation has been taken care off. We appointed Estate Managers, the first time in India, to take care of the maintenance & management of the government schools,” he added.
When we came to power, I have seen schools where one class would have as many as 174 students. We changed it. The government school infrastructure has seen a sea change in the last two and a half years, said Mr. Sisodia.
Referring to the campaigns like Chunauti and Reading Melas, the Dy CM said, we introduced innovative schemes to improve the basic learning and reading skills of the government school students.
Referring to the data of the Education Department, he said that the transition loss from Class 10th to Class 12th has come down in the recent years. While the transition loss in 2013-14 was 62158, it has come down 2016-17 to 18405. He also pointed towards the huge increase in expenditure on school infrastructure, which has gone up to Rs. 1228.9 crores in 2016-17 from Rs. 210 crores in 2012-13. (Detailed Data attached herewith).
