Page 18 - EducationWorld Oct. 2022

Education News

DELHI Rankings 2022-23 (see. p.160).
National footprint gambit The AAP leadership’s electoral

promises of upgrading and mod-
ernising primary-secondary educa-
tion combined with improved public
health services and anti-corruption
drives have impacted electorates
beyond Delhi. Last March, AAP won
a spectacular victory in the Punjab
legislative assembly election winning
92 seats in the 117-strong assembly,
and the party’s first government
beyond Delhi state was sworn in on
March 16.
Now with assembly elections due
to be held in Gujarat and Karnataka
early next year, the AAP leadership
has developed national ambitions.
In August, it launched ‘Make India
No.1’ campaign. Shortly later, it
launched an ambitious Delhi Model
Virtual School (DMVS) on August 31.
Kejriwal (right) & Sisodia: national image building initiative This national online classes IX-XII
schooling programme is open to
NDIA’S POLITICAL CLASS IS ARGUABLY services and corruption-free govern- any student countrywide. Admis-
the most obtuse of any country ment, AAP won 62 seats in the Delhi sions began on August 31 and a clear
Iworldwide. Whereas politicians state assembly. challenge has been thrown to the
world over are well aware that A rv in d K e j riw a l , a former civil 43-year-old NIOS (National Institute
education of children is the highest servant and M a n is h S is odia , chief of Open Schooling, estb.1979).
priority of parents, for post-indepen- minister and deputy CM respectively According to political pundits in
dence India’s politicians and political of the AAP government of Delhi Delhi, the DMVS open schooling
parties, education of generation next state, evidently believe that educa- programme is designed to give AAP
is a peripheral low priority issue. tion — especially primary-secondary a national image in the run-up to
Party manifestos pay mere lip service education — is an elections win- General Election 2024. The outcome
to the subject and education sel- ning issue. Delhi’s AAP government of the AAP government’s success in
dom figures in political debates and loudly proclaims that it allocates delivering online education during
discourse. 20-25 percent of its annual budget the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown,
The leadership of the new genre expenditure for education, a larger DMVS has been promoted under the
Aam Aadmi (‘common man’) Party proportion than of any state govern- aegis of Delhi Schools of Specialised
(AAP) is an exception to this rule. ment countrywide. It has impressive- Excellence Society and is affiliated
Quite clearly, this political party ly spruced up and modernised state with the Delhi Board of Secondary
born out of social activist Anna government schools and children’s Education (DBSE). This open school-
Hazare’s anti-corruption national learning outcomes have improved ing programme announced in the
movement (2012), believes that significantly. state budget of 2021-22, will enable
children’s education is an electoral The AAP leadership claims that students who can’t afford regular
issue. In 2015, after the BJP spectac- students are leaving upscale private schooling for various reasons includ-
ularly won General Election 2014, it schools to enroll in state government ing sports commitments, school
called a legislative assembly election schools. There’s some evidence to dropouts, girl children prevented
in Delhi state. Against all expecta- back this claim. The AAP govern- from going to school due to dis-
tions, the newly registered AAP won ment’s 22 show-piece Rajkiya Prat- tance, social taboos, child labour and
67 seats in the 70-strong assembly. ibha Vikas Vidyalaya (RPVV) schools others. “It is an anywhere, anytime
In 2020, after the BJP won an even are highly respected. Five of them futuristic concept whose time has
larger majority in General Election are ranked among the country’s Top come,” says an AAP spokesperson.
2019, campaigning on the platform 10 state government schools in the DMVS has divided educationists
of improving education and health latest EducationWorld India School on its ramifications for high school

18 EDUCATIONWORLD OCTOBER 2022