The Leader of the Opposition in the Haryana Assembly, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, on Saturday said in the name of the new education policy, the Bharatiya Janata Party-Jannayak Janta Party (BJP-JJP) government was only doing ‘event management’ and nothing concrete was being done to improve the standard of education.
“Education standards have been plummeting continuously in Haryana since the BJP government came to power. Instead of opening new schools, the government has closed several. About 50,000 posts are lying vacant in the education department. The fact is that 50% of the schools do not even have a head teacher. In such a situation, it is only unfortunate that the BJP-JJP government is celebrating the new education policy,” he said here.
‘Education hub’
Mr. Hooda said Haryana was emerging as a global education hub during the Congress government. “We established one central university, seven State universities, 23 deemed universities, 35 government colleges, 481 technical institutes, six medical colleges, 132 ITIs, 2,623 schools in the State. We established Rajiv Gandhi Education City project and students started coming to Haryana for education,” he said.
“Education is critical to creating new opportunities and our government had laid the foundation for the bright future of Haryana. It is painful that not a single such project or institution came to Haryana in seven years of the BJP government. On the contrary, works on institutions sanctioned during the Congress government were suspended and cancelled during the present government,” he said.
Rural schools closed
Mr. Hooda said ‘Kisan Model Schools’ were also started to improve the level of education in rural areas during the Congress government, but these were closed by the BJP government. “The Aarohi schools started during the Congress government have also been brought on the verge of closure. The standard of education cannot be raised without strengthening the basic infrastructure of education. The NITI Aayog report shows that Haryana has lagged behind the neighbouring States.”
