Centre may adopt Punjab's 'meritorious school' model: Smriti Irani

Bathinda (Pb), Sep 7: Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani on Monday said the Centre would explore the "feasibility" to adopt Punjab Government's 'meritorious school' model, at the national level to impart quality education for bright students hailing from economically weaker sections of the society.

"The Centre will explore the feasibility to adopt Punjab's model of 'meritorious schools' for imparting quality education to economically poor but bright students," the Union HRD Minister said while addressing students after visiting a 'meritorious school' here.

This model has shown Centre a way that would benefit poor but meritorious students, Irani said, while asking Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal to send a team of experts so that their advice could be incorporated in new education policy to replicate it at national level.

Hailing the Chief Minister for the model of schooling, she said, "Badal's dedication for upliftment of education in the state has hardly any match in the country due to which Punjab is being immensely benefited."

In his address, Badal said, the state was blessed with students, who despite belonging to economically weaker strata of society, were excellent in their studies.

The state government had opened these schools with a sole aim to tap their enormous potential to full extent, he said, adding that this model was the need of the hour to ensure that students from economically weaker sections were enormously benefited.

The Chief Minister further said that realising the unprecedented success of the 'meritorious school' model, Punjab government has recently approved setting of three more such schools at Sangrur, Ferozepur and Gurdaspur districts at a cost of Rs 30 crore each.

These schools would to provide free quality education and hostel facilities for students of government schools who had scored 80 per cent or above marks in the Matriculation examinations, Badal said.

These schools would be established on the pattern of already existing seven such Meritorious Schools at SAS Nagar (Mohali), Patiala, Bathinda, Jalandhar, Amritsar, Ludhiana and Talwara (Hoshiarpur), he said.

The 'meritorious school's were not only imparting academic education but also providing coaching for competitive exams, communication skills and others enabling the students to compete on par with their peers from public and convent schools, Badal said.

Earlier the Chief Minister, Union Food Processing Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal and Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani had an interactive session with the children of the school here.

PTI