-Autar Nehru Perhaps the sole political party in India whose leadership believes that provision, upgradation and universalisation of school education is an election-winning issue is the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) which was born out of social reformer Anna Hazare’s futile anti-corruption crusade of 2012. In 2015, AAP led by former government bureaucrat Arvind Kejriwal, stunned the country by winning the Delhi state legislative assembly election bagging 67 of the 70 seats of the house, an astonishing electoral coup given that the BJP which had swept to a landslide victory in General Election 2014 held a few months earlier, was expected to sweep Delhi as well. Five years later, AAP won Delhi again with an even larger majority. Its promise to wipe out petty corruption which is endemic in the state and local governments of the national capital (which was conferred special statehood in 1991) apart, upgrading and contemporisation of Delhi’s 1,028 state government schools with an aggregate enrolment of 1.8 million children has been a major plank of its successful election campaigns. But the party’s commendable initiatives to expand capacity in state government schools by adding 8,000 classrooms has resulted in the Delhi Lokayukta ordering the chief secretary of the Lt. Governor’s office (i.e, the Central government) to conduct an enquiry into corruption charges levelled against Manish Sisodia, deputy chief and education minister of the AAP government. According to Manoj Tiwari, former president of the Delhi state BJP and incumbent member of Parliament, although the estimated construction cost per classroom was Rs.5 lakh, the AAP government paid out Rs.25-28 lakh per classroom. Tiwari says this is prima facie proof of defalcation aggregating Rs.2,000 crore. When this issue was first raised publicly in 2019 Sisodia reacted sharply by filing defamation suits against Tiwari. Unlike all other parties, the AAP leadership makes education a big issue. It prides itself for allocating 22 percent (Rs.16,278 crore) of its total budgeted expenditure for 2022-23 towards education, the highest proportion of any state countrywide. Moreover, in addition to adding 8,000 classrooms to its 1,028 schools in its second term from 2020, the AAP government has established five specialised universities including skills, sports and teacher education varsities which have an aggregate enrolment of 25,000 youth. However, not a few academics and educationists are sceptical about the AAP government’s claims of great advances in education. According to R.C. Jain, president of the Delhi State Public Schools Management Association, of all children in class IX in state government schools only 50 percent make it to class XII, because under an unwritten policy of the government those who don’t perform well in class IX are asked to leave and enrol in NIOS as independent students to write the NIOS (National Institute of Open Schooling) board exam. “This is done to ensure that CBSE class XII board results of state government schools are 90 percent-plus,” says Jain. Moreover, he alleges that over 800 state government schools are functioning without headmasters. BJP spokespersons and the rising number of the party’s sympathisers…
