NEW DELHI: Education outcomes in state-run schools can be better than the private ones, Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee said on Saturday as he lauded Delhi government schools for “outperforming” their private peers.
He said state agencies have been “generous” with resource allocation for education, which is visible in aspects like teacher salaries and the system, and the focus needs to shift to making them perform better.
“Do I think that you can aspire to doing better in the government system relative to the average private school? Yes. The Delhi public schools have done it actually. Results in the Delhi public school system, the government school system like the municipal schools are better than the average private school in Delhi,’ he said.
CM Arvind Kejriwal said it was a proud moment for the city that Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee acknowledged the performance of Delhi government schools.
“Such a proud moment for Delhi. Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee acknowledges the performance of Delhi’s government schools. This year Class 12 results of government schools were at 96%, while private schools were at 93%,” he said in a tweet.
He said rather than financial resources, the Centre’s focus should be on reforms in human resource development, UGC and syllabus setting. He pitched strongly for leaving syllabus setting to the individual institutions, rather than making it centralised where boards set the syllabi.
(With PTI inputs)