NEW DELHI: Public Policy Research Centre (PPRC), a BJP think tank, has come out with a damning report on the performance of Delhi government-run schools. When contacted for its reaction, the AAP refused to comment on the findings.
Released on Friday, the findings claim that there is a consistent deterioration of schools on all fronts, be it infrastructure, processes or outcomes. “This is in contrast to the schools run by central government, Kendriya Vidhayalayas (KVs) and Municipal Corporation schools, where they have excelled in all these areas decisively over Delhi government schools,” says the report.
According to the report, Class X pass percentage of Delhi government schools dipped from 95.81 per cent in 2015 to 71.58 per cent in 2019, while it improved from 99.59 per cent to 99.79 per cent in KVs.
BJP vice-president Vinay Sahasrabuddhe released the report in an event attended by BJP vice-president Shyam Jaju, Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari, city MPs Meenakshi Lekhi, Parvesh Varma and Gautam Gambhir among others. Sahasrabuddhe, BJP spokesperson Nalin Kohli and BJP’s Delhi IT cell former head Sumeet Bhasin are among the four directors of PPRC.
At the launch event, Sahasrabuddhe expressed concerns over the declining pass percentage of Class X students. “Though the AAP government claimed the expenditure on education increased in the last five years, no improvement could be seen in infrastructure. They only appointed their workers as consultants and advisors,” Sahasrabuddhe said.
His party colleague Verma lamented that less than 0.84 per cent of Class XII students are even eligible to apply for various mainstream programmes in Delhi University (DU).On the alarming trend observed in student dropouts, Tiwari said that of 2,88, 094 students enrolled in Class IX in 2015-16, only 1,30,136 students eventually reached Class XII in 2018-19. “This means 55 per cent of Class IX students of Delhi government schools never reached class XII,” he said.