Punjab beats Kerala in NITI Aayog rankings
Claiming a historic turnaround, Punjab Education Minister S. Harjot Singh Bains on Thursday, August 06, 2026 said the state has overtaken Kerala to rank No
Claiming a historic turnaround, Punjab Education Minister S. Harjot Singh Bains on Thursday, August 06, 2026 said the state has overtaken Kerala to rank No. 1 in the NITI Aayog School Education Quality Index 2026. While 8,000 schools had no boundary walls and 4 lakh children sat on the floor in 2022, today Punjab has 882 NEET qualifiers from government schools and has become the first state in the country to introduce Artificial Intelligence as a core subject from Classes I to XII. This is the revolution AAP led government promised. Participating in a discussion on an education-related resolution moved by MLA Prof. Jaswant Singh Gajjanmajra, Mr. Bains recalled the dire state of affairs when he assumed office in July 2022. Revealing the findings of an initial infrastructure survey, Mr. Bains said over 8,000 schools lacked boundary walls, 3,200 had no functional toilets and nearly 4 lakh children were sitting on the floor. Textbooks would reach schools only in October-November, wasting precious months of the academic session. “Today, for the first time, textbooks reach district headquarters by February 15 and are fully distributed by March 31,” he said, while challenging anyone to verify this from any government teacher. Emphasising his hands-on governance model, Mr. Bains stated that he has personally visited over 2,000 government schools across every district of Punjab including border schools, zero-line villages, and remote areas.
He informed the House that the government’s flagship ‘Mission Samarth’ has emerged as one of India’s largest foundational learning programmes. Under its level-based teaching model, students are grouped by learning ability rather than grade to ensure every child masters reading, writing and mathematics. “When I visited schools in September-October 2022, I found Class 8 students who could not write simple sentences. Some could not do basic addition and subtraction. We identified these students and taught them from Class 3 syllabus level. Today, they are learning and improving,” S. Harjot Bains said, while adding that the programme now covers nearly 12 lakh students and engages over 70,000 teachers annually. Highlighting a surge in government school students performance, Mr. Bains told the House that NEET-UG qualifiers from Punjab’s government schools had jumped from just 80 in 2021 to 882 in 2026. The results, he said, are the direct outcome of the ‘Punjab Academic Coaching for Excellence’ (PACE) initiative. “For those who see only darkness, here is the light,” Mr. Bains said. In Majitha, six students from government schools cracked NEET. In Dinanagar, 17 did. These are not private coaching numbers. These are our sarkari schools, he added. He singled out Harnoorpreet Kaur, a girl from a humble background who secured All India Rank 3140 in her category.
The BriefWire