New Delhi: A day after the Congress accused the AAP government in Delhi of not doing anything about ‘1.5 lakh students dropping out of school’, deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia accused the party of making false accusations. He also said that his party’s education model was better than that of BJP-ruled states and also Punjab.
‘Education is investment in future for us, not expenditure’
Sisodia said that the AAP government in Delhi viewed education as an investment for the future and not an expenditure. He said the spending on education as a percentage of the total budget has constantly increased under the Arvind Kejriwal-led government.
The spending on education was 16% in 2013-14 in Delhi and it has since increased to 26%. In real terms, he said, the spending has increased by nearly Rs 10,000 crore from Rs 5,600 crore in 2013-14 to Rs 15,600 in the current fiscal.
‘AAP government spending more on education than BJP-ruled states’
In comparison, Sisodia accused BJP-ruled states of spending very little on education. In fact, he said, in several of them, the percentage spending on education in their annual budget has dropped significantly. In this regard, the AAP leader claimed that spending on education reduced from 15% to 13% in Haryana; 16% to 13% in Uttar Pradesh and from 14% to 10% in Congress-ruled Punjab.
“What are these states thinking? That if children will get educated, they will ask questions of them,” he quipped adding that the BJP has been deliberately reducing the spending on education.
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Sisodia said about 10% of the total spending of states and Centre is on education and now the Centre is saying that it would take this level up to 20% in 10 years. “But how will they do it?” he asked pointing to the poor economic condition of the country.
‘Centre cut expenditure on education when collections dropped’
Sisodia also said that the Centre had immediately cut its expenditure on education when its tax collections fell indicating that it did not see merit in spending on the sector.
He urged BJP to fight the Delhi assembly elections on the education model and exuded confidence that “people will defeat” the saffron party on this count.
Meanwhile, South Delhi MP and senior BJP leader Ramesh Bidhuri today accused the AAP government on behalf of his party for failing to improve school and college infrastructure and for the poor results and high dropout rate in Delhi government schools.
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The BJP charged that while the Kejriwal government promised to construct 500 new government schools and 20 new colleges for improving education, it failed to open even 10 new government schools.
Over the last five years, he charged that people of Delhi have been cheated on every issue while crores have been spent on advertisements by the Kejriwal government.
‘Why new schools, colleges not constructed on allotted plots’
Bidhuri questioned why new schools and colleges were not opened when 80 to 82 plots had been allotted for building new schools. “Instead of making new schools, playgrounds have been destroyed and new classrooms have been made. No new colleges have been constructed, neither has the government recruited 17,000 teachers needed urgently,” he said.
The BJP leader also alleged that the AAP government did not regularise the services of 20,000 guest teachers and that only 50% of 8,500 vacant posts in schools have been filled till date.
‘Pass percentage dropped, dropouts increased to 2.5 lakh’
Like the Delhi Congress leadership, Bidhuri also claimed that RTI applications have revealed that around 2.5 lakh students had to leave government schools in the last two years and that result in Class 10 board examinations saw a drop in pass percentage from 98.8% to 71%.
He asked if it would not have been better had the AAP government invested more on improving the education system rather than spending crores on advertisements. He said: “Instead of teaching children, events are being organised, their time is being wasted in the name of skill development and they are being exploited. Kejriwal government has crushed the dreams of Delhi’s children and their parents, for which they will never forgive them.”
AAP-BJP bicker on whose schools are better
While AAP has all along claimed that the quality of its schools has improved so much that people are now pulling out their children from private schools and getting them admitted in government schools, Bidhuri claimed that it were central government-run Kendriya Vidyalayas which were the most sought after in Delhi.
He also accused the Kejriwal government of deliberately withholding funds due to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, which runs a large number of primary schools.
Meanwhile, Sisodia denied that the pass percentage has dropped or that children have dropped out of Delhi Government schools. Reacting to the charges which the Congress made earlier, he said, “both the Congress data and thinking is fraud”.