Punjab Education Minister Harjot Singh Bains on Tuesday presented the four-and-a-half-year report card of the state's school education system, claiming that the Bhagwant Mann-led government has invested Rs 2,300 crore in school infrastructure and significantly improved government schools across the state. Addressing a press conference at Punjab Bhawan in Chandigarh, Bains said Punjab has now moved ahead of Kerala in terms of investment in education, as per the NITI Aayog report for 2026-27.<\/p>\n
The minister said that since 2022, around 3.64 lakh students have shifted from private schools to government schools. He said the increase reflects growing public confidence in government schools and credited the improvement to the reforms undertaken by the Aam Aadmi Party-led government after it came to power in March 2022.<\/p>\n
AI-generated summary, reviewed by editors<\/p>\n
Recalling the government's election promise, Bains said Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann had travelled across villages and cities asking people for an opportunity to transform Punjab's government schools. The people responded by giving the AAP 92 seats in the Assembly, he said.<\/p>\n
Bains claimed that when the government took charge in 2022, it inherited a poor education infrastructure. According to him, many schools did not even have proper boundary walls, more than 5,000 schools lacked usable toilets, around four lakh children were forced to sit on floors, and nearly 500 schools did not have drinking water. He also claimed that students used to receive textbooks up to five months late.<\/p>\n
Bains said the Mann government has invested Rs 2,300 crore in school infrastructure over the past four-and-a-half years, which works out to an average investment of around Rs 15 lakh per school. He said 13,920 new toilets have been constructed and every government school in the state now has a usable toilet. Around two lakh benches have also been provided so that students do not have to sit on the floor.<\/p>\n
More than 9,000 new classrooms and laboratories have been constructed, while over 10,000 interactive panels have been installed in classrooms. As many as 5,012 schools have also been upgraded with advanced computer laboratories.<\/p>\n
The minister said all government schools in Punjab now have Wi-Fi facilities, while 99.9 per cent of schools have boundary walls.<\/p>\n
Highlighting the pace of construction, Bains said that if the 9,000 new classrooms built by the government were calculated on a daily basis, it would show how rapidly the infrastructure had been developed.<\/p>\n
Bains said government schools now offer sports facilities that were earlier mostly associated with private institutions. These include swimming pools, shooting ranges, basketball and tennis courts, kabaddi mats, wrestling rings and boxing rings. He also highlighted the government's teacher-training initiatives. Under these programmes, principals were sent to Singapore for training, primary teachers were sent to Finland, and head teachers received training at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad.<\/p>\n
The education minister said ex-servicemen have been appointed as campus managers in all senior secondary schools. Two security guards have also been deployed in every senior secondary school with more than 500 students. Schools are being provided a monthly cleaning fund ranging from Rs 3,000 to Rs 50,000, depending on the number of students, he said.<\/p>\n
Bains said the academic performance of students in government schools has also improved significantly. Over the past four years, 786 government school students have cleared the JEE examination, while 2,166 students have qualified for NEET, he said.<\/p>\n
According to Bains, the number of government school students qualifying for NEET-UG increased from just 80 in 2021 to 882 in 2026, marking a more than tenfold rise. The number stood at 437 in 2024, increased to 847 in 2025 and reached 882 this year.<\/p>\n
He further said 361 students from government schools qualified for JEE Main, while 64 cleared JEE Advanced.<\/p>\n
Bains said Punjab has become the first state in the country to introduce Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a core subject from Classes 1 to 12. He also highlighted the Business Blasters programme, under which around 2.30 lakh students have gained practical experience in running businesses.<\/p>\n