AAP govt revolutionised education system in City
Last year, Delhi govt allocated Rs 13,997 cr, which is 26% of total budget
New Delhi: With just 14 days remained for completion of four years of AAP government in Delhi, qualitative improvements in the Delhi government's schools are being felt by the parents across the national Capital. Education is among the top segments, where the AAP government is having consistent focus, and as result of this attention the government schools in the city are showing exemplary results.
Most of the parents believe that since the AAP government came in power, it has not only improved the teaching methods, but has also developed the school infrastructure. Government schools, infamous for their poor and archaic standards of teaching, have transformed under the current government's tenure, parents believe.
Last year, the Delhi government had allocated Rs 13,997 crore, which is 26 per cent of the total budget, for the education sector in the budget for 2018-2019 fiscal year, while the financial year 2017-2018 was 23.5 percent of the total budget amount was allocated for the education sector.
In the first financial budget 2015- 16, the AAP government had doubled the allocation for education. The government's total budget for the current fiscal year was estimated at Rs 41,129 crore. This included plan expenditure of Rs 19,000 crore and Rs 22,129 crore of non-plan expenditure.
When Arvind Kejriwal government had come into power in 14 February, 2015, Delhi student parents got major relief, when the government has ordered 575 private schools in Delhi to refund the excess fees charged - between June 2016 to January 2018. Moreover, the private schools have been asked to refund the amount with 9 per cent interest. "The committee has identified 575 schools in its report to refund excess fees charged by these schools with 9 per cent interest. The schools are directed to refund the fees within 7 days and ensure disbursal of pending payment of salaries if any," an order by the Directorate of Education (DoE) said report.
"The committee has identified 575 schools in its report to refund excess fees charged by these schools with 9 per cent interest. The schools are directed to refund the fees within 7 days and ensure disbursal of pending payment of salaries if any," an order by the Directorate of Education (DoE) said report.
While Delhi's Education Minister Manish Sisodia has repeatedly stressed on the need to improve education system and, during his first budget speech, when he doubled the government's expenditure on education, had said "the money spent on education and health is not an expense, but an investment into the well-being of coming generations".
According to Sisodia, the goal of making government schools better than private schools does not end with improving infrastructure and recruitment of teachers. "Since the core of the educational improvement process lies in building capacity of teachers, the government would train teachers and principals at the best universities in the world like Harvard, Cambridge and Oxford," he had said. The first to receive international training was a group of 200 teachers who the government called "mentor teachers". The aim was to leverage their creative expertise to enhance the pedagogic and academic capacities of over 45,000 Delhi government school teachers. When the party came to power, there were 24,000 classrooms across the over 1,000 government schools. In its first phase of construction work to expand schools, 8,000 new classrooms were constructed.
