‘Discriminatory educational policies’: Punjab’s order to admit ‘least possible’ children in Schools of Eminence draws flak

According to the Punjab government’s March 24 order, the new “non-SoE students”, meaning those who will not clear entrance test, should not be admitted in these schools in class 6, 9 and 11, but instead they should be asked to go to some other non-SoE government school nearby.

The order states that non-SoE students should be encouraged to take admission in other non-SoE schools nearby and teachers should ensure that the student or his/her parents should not face any inconvenience.

The order issued by Punjab direction school education (secondary), further states that the decision has been taken “on the directions of state education minister” and it was being done to “ensure that SoE students could be given maximum facilities.”

The AAP-led Punjab government has upgraded 118 existing senior secondary schools into “Schools of Eminence” to provide “state of the art” educational facilities to the students from class 9 to 12. The new students are being admitted in these schools in class 9 and 11 after clearing an entrance test. However, most of these schools are also already running classes 6 to 8 and a few are even having pre-primary and primary classes (1 to 5).

Of the 118 SoEs across the state, majority are still undergoing infrastructural upgrade, and only 14 have been inaugurated yet. However, the students are studying in separate sections bifurcated as “SoE” and “non-SoE”.

Meanwhile, questioning the discriminatory educational policy of the AAP government, the Democratic Teachers Front (DTF) on Sunday said that this order was going to put future of hundreds of students at stake who will be forced to either go to private schools or drop out in case there was no other government school nearby.

DTF general secretary Mohinder Korianwala said, “This is pure discrimination and violation of Right to Education Act (RTE). They cannot deny admission to any student in a nearby government school just because it’s an SoE and the student did not clear entrance exam. Each SoE is having just one class 9 section of 36 SoE students and four sections for class 12 (32 students each in four streams). Where will the rest of the students go? There are a total of 38,704 seats for class 9 to 12 in 118 SoEs. Currently, according to our data, at least 1.14 lakh students are studying in these 118 schools from class 6 to 12. At least 29,230 students are studying in 6 to 8 and at least 85k are studying in 9 to 12. So what is the plan for the remaining 76k children? They are being forced to leave the government schools slowly and gradually just because of this discrimination between SoE and non-SoE students. The government should have focused on providing equal and excellent educational facilities to all students in all schools instead of creating this division among the students.”

However, Balwinder Kaur, assistant director at Schools of Eminence project, said that there were enough non-SoE government schools to accommodate the children who would not secure admission in SoEs. “Teachers will ensure that the student or his/her parents do not face any inconvenience. In case, there will be no such school nearby, then the student will be given admission in the SoE itself,” she said.

Asked if the there were any plans to increase the number of seats in SoEs, she said, “It is a government-level decision on which I cannot comment. All this will depend on results of the entrance test.”

About 75 per cent seats in SoEs are reserved for government school students and the rest 25 per cent are for those from private schools.