Delhi Government Schools: What is the reality of Delhi Education Model ?

August 23, 2022
India Politics

By Kushagra Tiwari

New Delhi:  Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Education Minister Manish Sisodia never get tired of marketing Delhi Government Schools. Whether it is Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, or even London Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders project the Delhi government’s Education Model as world-class.

As the Assembly elections approach in Gujarat and other states, AAP is increasingly boasting about Delhi Government Schools as new state-of-the-art education hubs. To woe, the voters Kejriwal is very vocal about the “successful” education model in the national capital.

But in reality, the ‘Kejriwal Education Model’ is just turning out to be a marketing gimmick, because the ground situation of the schools in the national capital tells a different story.

Delhi BJP MPs exposed the conditions of government-run schools in Delhi:

Some reality-check is evident in the videos captured by BJP leaders during their visit to Delhi government runs schools.

South Delhi BJP MP Ramesh Bhiduri on April 11 tweeted a video clip of a school in Delhi.

The clip showed broken cupboard doors in the classroom. The windows in the schools were broken and without glass.

The tweet of Bhiduri stated, “Wah! The reality of world-class schools of world lier Arvind Kejriwal in Delhi. There are 70 rooms in the school against 5000 children. There are not enough teachers and no clean water.”

 

West Delhi BJP MP Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma also visited the Delhi Government-run schools and claimed that the condition of these schools was deplorable.

 

 

He tweeted videos of the Delhi government schools visited by him in his constituency, and said that he was informed by the staff that children were forced to study in a building that was declared “dangerous”.

In another tweet, Parvesh Singh showed the cracks in walls and ceilings of schools that can fall at any time and asked Kejriwal and Sisodia if they will teach their children in these schools.  

Later on the same day, Parvesh Singh further exposed the Delhi Government Schools while speaking to a news channel where he said, “I want to tell Delhi CM and Dy CM that if they have built new schools in Delhi, then they should share their physical address. They don’t tell physical addresses when we ask.”

Taking a dig at Manish Sidodia’s visit to Gujarat schools Singh said “I want the people of Gujarat to send back Mr. Sisodia to Delhi so that I can take show him the poor condition of Delhi government-run schools.”

“When I visited the “world-class’ school here in Delhi, the students were studying in a classroom that had cracks on the ceiling. I asked Vice Principal about this and was told that the school management has sent requests to the Delhi government regarding repair. The building was built in 1954. It was in very poor condition. This AAP Government gives Rs. 1 crore advertisement daily in media. They can better utilize it in school. One school can be repaired for this much cost. The school I visited had no clean water. Power was also a problem, they said power failure continue for 12 hours and students have to seat in heat. The toilet is in poor condition as well,” the BJP MP added.

Another BJP MP Ramesh Bidhuri tweeted a clip on April 12 from a school in his constituency area. He tweeted that more than 64 girls are sitting in one section. It was also visible in the video that children were sitting on the ground in a porta-cabin of raw tin in the sweltering heat. There is no arrangement of the desk.

 

 

Ramesh Bidhuri said that he visited a total of 9 schools run by the Delhi govt on April 11 and 12 and claimed that in one school there were 65 rooms for 6600 students, while in the school there were 72 rooms against 5000 students and when asked the Principal added a laboratory room to the total number of rooms in the school.

Bidhuri also said, “Delhi has about 1,000 schools run by Delhi Government. Kejriwal had said that he would build 500 new schools in Delhi if elected to power. I filed RTI and inquired how many schools have been built in 7 years rule of Kejriwal so far. Last year in reply to my RTI it was stated that only one new school has been built under the AAP government.”

Against the tall claims of world-class school infrastructure, there are examples of what is the actual state of Government schools in Delhi. In one of examples – a female student in govt school in outer Delhi’s Nangloi was injured after her class room’s ceiling fan fell on her head. The student who was injured on August 27, 2022 was admitted to a private hospital in Nangloi. Narrating the incident, the student alleged that the ceiling had a damp and it was dripping. “The fan fell off the ceiling in the classroom on August 27 when the classes were going on. The ceiling had a damp and water was dripping from it because of which the ceiling broke off and the fan fell down,” she said.

Previous government’s achievements, Arvind Kejriwal’s marketing

One thing which is undermined while discussing Delhi’s State govt run schools and the education is that, the Kejriwal government inherited it from  predecessor Late Sheila Dikshit.

In her book titled “Citizen Delhi: Mera Jiwan, Mere Anubhav”, Sheila Dikshit while describing her stint as the Chief Minister of Delhi, wrote: There were other heartening signs as well. In 2008, the pass percentage of Delhi government schools was over eighty percent, up from forty percent some years ago.

While AAP activists rejoice in reading articles with titles like this published in The Times of India “Delhi government schools best in the country”, the fact is that this article dates back to 2013 when Dikshit presided as the Chief Minister of Delhi. 

The article states:

Delhi government schools have performed best in the category across the country Delhi saw 88.62% of students passing the Boards this year followed by Panchkula with 85.32% and Chennai with 64.68%. The pass percentage of government school students has gone up by 0.93 % this year. The best results have come from Rajkriya Pratibha Vikas Vidyalaya (RPVV) with 99.05% of students clearing the exam. “I would like to congratulate students, parents, teachers, and education department over the best-ever results of Delhi government schools in Class CBSE Examination,” said chief minister Sheila Dikshit.

Thus, it’s clearly visible that the Delhi education model about which AAP does marketing as its achievement across India was actually existing during Late Sheila Dikshit as the Chief Minister of Delhi, and may be even before her. 

An article published in India Today in 2013 (Sheila Dixit as Chief Minister) with the headline “CBSE results: Government schools outshine private schools in Delhi”  says:

The government schools had a pass percentage of 99.45 percent while the private and aided schools stood at 99.17 and 97.26 percent, respectively, a statement issued by the Delhi government said. Congratulating the students, teachers, and parents, Dikshit said that she was delighted with the increase in the number of schools achieving 100 percent results.” 

This reflects the commitment, devotion, and hard work put in by the teachers and the officers in the directorate of education. It is also a testimony to the standard of schools becoming better in Delhi,” Dikshit said. 

Overall, Delhi has witnessed an increase in the pass percentage of students as the figure went up from 97.92 percent in 2012 to 98.4 percent in 2013. The result of government schools has also witnessed an increase of 0.22 percent and has gone up from 99.23 percent in 2012 to 99.45 percent this year. The number of such schools was 400 last year and has increased to 597 this year.

Chief Minister of Delhi and AAP’s national convenor, Arvind Kejriwal requests his guests to visit the government schools of Delhi and arrange for their travel. What is not highlighted is the fact that it was under the rule of Sheila Dixit that the government school infrastructure of Delhi was upgraded and transformed under the Roopantar and BALA schemes, as published in this article in The Hindu in 2009. As per the details published in the article of DNA, 127 Delhi government schools were renovated and their infrastructure upgraded in 2010-11, with additional nine thousand teachers to be appointed and twelve new schools to be constructed.

The reality of Delhi Government Schools’ results 

Arvind Kejriwal’s government always boasts about how public schools perform better in CBSE 12th Exams as compared to private schools. But if we go and check the data the reason will be the ‘filtering’ system which only allows capable students to take the Class 12 board exams.

As per data accessed by ThePrint, about half of the students in Delhi government schools fail in Class 9, in effect ensuring that only 50 percent of the enrolled government school students go on to take the Class 10 and Class 12 board exams.

It is also observed from the data that while the pass percentage of class 9th students dwells between 50% and 60% the pass percentage of class 12th students has been consistent at about 88%.

Another figure from 2018 suggests that even when the AAP claimed that these wonderful results of Govt. schools are because of their revival of the Delhi education model the result percentage was higher because the Centre run govt. schools performed exceptionally.

In 2018, Private schools in the Delhi region had a pass percentage of 89.45 in class while and while the state govt. institutions had a pass percentage of 69.96. Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas and Kendriya Vidyalayas which are funded by the central Government had the highest pass percentage in the Delhi region with 98.63 and 97.03 respectively. 

Another reason for the better results of Delhi government schools might be the lack of a science stream in state-run schools. As per the report by the Times of India, in 2017, only 279 schools out of 1029 schools across Delhi were providing a Science stream. 

Since the science stream is considered tougher than any other stream and the failure rate is more in the science stream. It is not right to compare the result of the Government and the private schools at the senior secondary level as most of the private schools offer a science stream.

Vacant posts of Principals and Teachers in State-run Schools 

In April this year the apex child rights body National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), pointed out that only 203 out of 1,027 govt schools in Delhi have a headmaster or principal.

The NCPCR in a letter written to Delhi Chief Secretary Vijay Dev dated 12th April 2022, has listed the discrepancies found by them, which includes the vacant post of the Head of School (HOS) in most of the schools. 

Regarding the importance of HOS, the letter stated, “An HoS or Principal has an important role to play in ensuring the schools have positive learning environment towards quality education, and to develop a caring, inclusive culture in schools.” The absence of the school principal or headmaster will also have implications for the safety and security of children, it further stated.

Furthermore, as per the RTI data accessed by TOI, “As of March 4, 2022, 17,271 posts out of total 3,3086 sanctioned posts for trained graduate teachers are vacant. This is a shortfall of over 50%.

According to the data, there are 17,231 posts sanctioned for Post graduate teachers (PGT) who teach classes XI and XII. But here also 4151 posts lie vacant and out of them, 3168 are occupied by guest teachers.

However, a government official claimed that these vacancies do not indicate that there are no teachers in schools as they have a pool of guest teachers who fill in for the regular subject teachers. But using guest teachers comes with its own drawbacks as these teachers are vicariously demanding regularisation of their service.

32nd position in Learning Outcome and Quality as per PGI 19-20

As per the Performance Grading Index of 2019-2020, by the Ministry of Education, GOI, Delhi stands at 6th position. The top 5 are Punjab, Chandigarh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Andaman & Nicobar respectively. 

Furthermore, in the report, one can see how the boast of Delhi having the best performance in the country in the sector of education is proven a sham. In the domain of learning outcome & quality, Delhi stands in the 32nd position among all states and UTs. Delhi is in the 6th position from the bottom.

AAP came to power in Punjab with the claim that Delhi has the best education policy in the country. Punjab has outscored Delhi in every domain of PGI 2019-2020.

There are further questions and controversies regarding the Delhi Education Model such as :

AAP opened only 41 out of 500 schools that were promised 

The Aam Aadmi party while campaigning for the elections in Delhi in 2015, promised to build 500 schools. But as per an RTI reply dated 25th March 2019, only 41 schools were opened between 2013 – 2019

Moreover, one RTI reply reveals that 16 schools run by the government were closed from the period of 2015 to 2021.

Loan to 2 students and Advertisement expenses of Rs. 19 crore

AAP government again came under heat when a report published by Newslaundry revealed that the state govt. spent Rs 19 crores on advertisements for a scheme called the ‘Delhi Higher Education and Skill Development Guarantee Scheme’. The RTI also revealed that the government has granted loans to only two students in 2021-2022 under the scheme.

 

Enrollment and Quality of education down in Delhi Govt Schools

Union Minister of Education, Dharmendra Pradhan, in a press conference, said, “I would like to state some facts for people (Delhi Govt) who consider the Education Model their brownie point.

“As per the Statistics Delhi’s education department, The number of students enrolling in Delhi government schools has decreased since the AAP government came to power,” said Pradhan.

Minister further reported that the union government conducted a ‘National Assessment Survey (NAS)’ in collaboration with all the states to know the effectiveness and quality of school education in government school in country.

A total of 1,602 schools operated by the Delhi government were assessed, and about 10,000 teachers and 65,000 students were surveyed in four classes: 3, 5, 8, and 10.

Based on the survey results, Delhi government schools are well below the national average. At the national level, the government schools average 52 points out of 100, while Delhi only had 42 points.

Pradhan also pointed out in the press conference that no appointment was done on the post of principal in year 2020-21.

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Fees Hike Controversy

AAP leader Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia boast that they have not allowed private schools in Delhi to impose any fee hike. However the facts are different.

In April, Delhi Dy CM informed the media that the Delhi government allowed limited private schools to hike school fees marginally. 

“Since 2015 we didn’t permit the private schools to increase fees and continued till 2020 in wake of Covid. But now we’ve allowed very limited schools to increase by 2-3 percent, he said.

Now one would say that after 2015 the price rise of 2-3 percent is not much but the reality is different. As per a report published by The Quint, Several parents of children attending private schools have said that private schools do not follow government orders to reduce fees. This renders AAP’s claim of controlling private school fees false. 

Prominent film-maker Mayank Jain, a resident of Delhi  tweets the fees chart of DPS, Mathura Road that shows a hike of 8.33% in fees for the academic year 2022-2023.

 

While Kejriwal and Sisodia keep claiming that they did not allow any fees raise by private schools, the parents of students going to DPS in Rohini and Aster Public School in Mayur Vihar were on the roads protesting about the fee hike.

IIT admissions from Delhi Govt. Schools

Kejriwal claims that a lot of students from Delhi’s government-run schools get admission to IITs.  Kejriwal also shares a few names as examples. However, there is no data available nationally to make comparisons. It is all possible that in other States too, some students from Government run schools eventually join IIT.  There’s no such data available to make comparisons between different States in this regard. 

The shift of students from private to government Schools 

Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP is always seen boasting that after they came to power in Delhi the conditions of the Govt schools are so improved that children are switching from private to public schools. 

Last year Kejriwal said that over 2.5 lakh students switched to govt schools after his party came to power. But it’s not just Delhi that saw this switch, many states have witnessed the private to public schools shifting of students. If we talk about the election-bound Gujarat, as per the report of Indian Express, over 3 lakh students shifted to Govt schools from private schools. The same could be true for many other places.

Claims of big budget share for Education, but utilization as low as 39.13%

Arvind Kejriwal and his Deputy keep reminding people that their government’s priority is Education and the AAP government in Delhi allocate huge budget for Education. However the available data shows that the budget announced in budget speech is not fully spent at the end of the budget year. And the unspent portion is very big.

Numbers show that up until 2015, before AAP came to power, the actual expenditure on Education sector was rising and utilization was nearing the expenses proposed in the budget. In the year 2015, after forming the govt Kejriwal doubled the budget for Education sector. But in that same year, the actual expenditure was merely 58.63% of allocation.

In an RTI reply to Sujit Patel (RTI Activist), the data shared by the Delhi government itself shows that the AAP govt only proposes the big budget for Education to earn optics, but doesn’t work with matching enthusiasm to utilize that allocated budget.

The RTI shows that before AAP came to power the actual expenditure was more than 90% of the Budgeted allocation. But just after AAP came to power in 2015 it dropped to 58.63%. The only year AAP’s actual expenditure went 100% was 2017-18, after that the Actual expenditure has never crossed 70% of the budget Expenditure. In 2018-19 only 39.13 per cent of allocated budget could be utilized through the year in Education sector. In 2020-21 the percentage was 48.54.

Pupil-teacher ratio deteriorated in Delhi as per UDISE+

Pupil teacher ratio is the ratio of the number of students to teaching staff. Delhi on all levels, that are primary, middle, secondary, and higher secondary has seen a rise in this ratio. This rise means that the burden on teachers is increasing and students are getting fewer teachers than they need.

Level of School  PTR in 2019-20 PTR in 2020-21
Primary 32.7 33
Middle 29.3 31
Secondary 27.6 29
Higher Secondary  17.9 20

Kejriwal Govt facing allegation of projecting toilets as Classrooms

In August 2022, opposition BJP alleged “irregularities” and “cost overrun” in the construction of additional classrooms in Delhi government schools on basis of a Vigilance Commission report. This report found gross irregularities and procedural lapses in the execution of projects and was sent by the CVC, to the Secretary, Vigilance, GNCTD on February 17, 2020, seeking comments for investigation.

The report claimed, “The cost of constructing classrooms escalated to Rs 326.25 crore, which is 53% higher than the awarded amount of tender. This escalated cost was utilized for construction of only 4,027 classrooms against the 6,133 that were to be constructed. In 194 schools, 1,214 toilets were constructed against requirement of 160 toilets with an extra expenditure of Rs 37 crore. Toilets were projected as classrooms by government.”

While there’s no doubt that Delhi Government might have developed a few schools that can be showcased as the best of the lot (and a few model schools would be in any other State), the government in Delhi has miles to go and make lot of corrections to many of its schools and school-system at home-front before roaming across the country and making big claims.

DeshGujarat

#Aam Aadmi Party #AAP #Arvind Kejriwal #Kejriwal #Manish Sisodia

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