NEW DELHI: Having spent more than three years in power, the Aam Aadmi Party-led Delhi government has made qualitative improvements in government schools, being felt by the parents across the national capital.
Education is among the top segments, where the AAP government has focussed consistent, as result of which the government schools in Delhi are showing exemplary results.
Most parents believe that since AAP government came in power, it has not only improved the teaching methods, but has also developed the school infrastructure.
Government schools, once infamous for their poor and archaic standards of teaching, have transformed under the current government's tenure, parents believe.
During his first budget speech, when he doubled the government's expenditure on education, Delhi Education Minister Manish Sisodia – who has repeatedly stressed on the need to improve education system – 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 earlier 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 government school teachers.
Manu Gulati, who went to Singapore for training in August last year and is now a mentor teacher, said after the training, she feels motivated to perform better.
"The general feeling is that by investing in their training, the government is showing its trust in the teachers. In terms of calibre, teaching aptitude, knowledge and pedagogy skills, government school teachers are no less than those at private schools," said Gulati, who started her teaching career in 2011.