After rejoining PM Shri, Punjab to draw fresh list of schools for upgrade

Punjab government has decided to select schools for the Pradhan Mantri Schools for Rising India (PM SHRI) Scheme afresh.

The decision to select the government schools again has been taken by the school education department after the Bhagwant Mann-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government last month decided to implement PM SHRI in the state, a year after opting out of the centrally-sponsored scheme.

“The department will undertake a fresh exercise to identify the government schools for the upgrade scheme as the situation has changed. The selection process will be started very soon. The number of schools may also go up,” said an official privy to the decision.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the programme in 2022 for the upgrade of 14,500 government schools into ‘exemplar schools’, which will showcase the implementation of the National Education Policy 2020 and offer leadership to other schools in the neighbourhood.

The 241 state schools were selected for the first phase of PM SHRI in February 2023, which was followed up by the Union ministry of education (MoE) with a letter to the then principal secretary, school education, on March 28 last year, asking the state to prepare the work plan and designate a separate Single Nodal Agency (SNA) for its implementation. However, the state government, on July 18, 2023, decided to pull out of the programme, bringing the process to a halt.

Another school education department official said the fresh selection of PM SHRI schools will also be held through the ‘challenge mode’ prescribed by the Union ministry of education (MoE), wherein schools compete for support to become exemplar schools. “A pool of schools that are eligible to be selected as PM SHRI Schools are identified through UDISE+ data. These schools then compete to fulfil the criteria and the school education department verifies their claims and makes recommendations. The final selection is done by an expert committee of the central ministry,” he said.

No elementary school picked in first phase

The government schools included in the state’s list of 241 in the first phase were all secondary (up to class 10) and senior secondary (up to class 12) schools with not a single elementary (up to class 8) finding a mention. These included 17 schools each in Bathinda, Ludhiana and Patiala, 16 in Jalandhar and Gurdaspur, 14 in Amritsar, Hoshiarpur and Sangrur, nine in Moga, eight in Pathankot and Fazilka, and seven in Mansa. In the list of 6,200 schools selected for the first phase of PM SHRI, Punjab was probably the only state that did not include any elementary schools.

States like Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh, on the other hand, had more elementary schools than secondary and senior secondary ones under the programme being jointly financed by the central and state governments on a 60:40 funding ratio. “The budget including central and state share for each primary, elementary and secondary/senior secondary school may be around ₹1 crore, ₹1.30 crore and ₹2.25 crore, respectively, depending upon the enrolment of the students and requirements of the schools individually,” according to a letter circulated by Vipin Kumar, additional secretary, MoE, to the state governments last year.

State rejoined scheme after Centre stopped funds

Punjab, which signed the memorandum of understanding in October 2022, pulled out of the programme in July last year, citing its ‘Schools of Eminence’ scheme and plans to transform 1,000 other state-run schools into specialised schools under proposed schemes of ‘Schools of Happiness’ and ‘Schools of Brilliance’.

“It is felt that shifting 241 schools under any other scheme would create ambiguity since the state wants to focus on state initiatives/projects. Therefore, the state government is not willing to opt for the PM SHRI School Scheme,” the director general school education, Punjab, wrote to the central ministry on July 18.

Punjab was among five opposition-ruled states that opted out or did not sign an MoU for the scheme. After the central government stopped funds of Samagra Shiksha, its flagship scheme for the education sector, the Punjab government last month wrote to the ministry expressing willingness to participate in the programme. So far, 32 states and union territories have signed the MoU.