Claiming a historic turnaround, Punjab Education Minister S. Harjot Singh Bains on Thursday said the state has overtaken Kerala to rank No. 1 in the NITI Aayog School Education Quality Index 2026. While 8,000 schools had no boundary walls and 4 lakh children sat on the floor in 2022, today Punjab has 882 NEET qualifiers from government schools and has become the first state in the country to introduce Artificial Intelligence as a core subject from Classes I to XII. This is the revolution AAP led government promised.
Participating in a discussion on an education-related resolution moved by MLA Prof. Jaswant Singh Gajjanmajra, the School Education Minister S. Harjot Singh Bains recalled the dire state of affairs when he assumed office in July 2022.
Revealing the findings of an initial infrastructure survey, S. Bains said over 8,000 schools lacked boundary walls, 3,200 had no functional toilets and nearly 4 lakh children were sitting on the floor. Textbooks would reach schools only in October-November, wasting precious months of the academic session.
“Today, for the first time, textbooks reach district headquarters by February 15 and are fully distributed by March 31,” he said, while challenging anyone to verify this from any government teacher.
Emphasising his hands-on governance model, S. Bains stated that he has personally visited over 2,000 government schools across every district of Punjab including border schools, zero-line villages, and remote areas.
Taking on the Opposition, he shot back, “Target me personally if you want. Why are you targeting government schools? A false narrative created by a few negative minds has already driven people away from government schools.”