This year again, the government has allocated Rs 13,997 crore, which is 26 per cent of the total budget, for the education sector in the budget for 2018-2019 fiscal.

Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party government in Delhi has given a lot of attention to education and health for governance since coming to power. Almost a quarter of State Government’s budget is allocated for the education sector. Last year, the government allocated around 24 per cent of its budget on education, and it seems, the efforts have delivered. As the results of CBSE examination were declared on Saturday, the pass percentage at Delhi government schools saw a remarkable increase this year — rising to 90.68% from 88.36% last year. In private schools, the percentage increased by 4.15% to reach 88.35%.

Not only the government schools performed well, they surpassed the performance of private schools. The overall performance of government schools was the second best after Thiruvananthapuram, where pass percentage for schools under the category stands at 99.11%, down from 100% last year.

Following the results, Delhi Education Minister Manish Sisodia took to Twitter and said the results are higher than last year. “Results of Delhi government schools this year are ahead of private schools this year as well. Greetings to all. Students and teachers of government schools have performed 2.37% better than their last year’s results,” Sisodia Tweeted. From government schools, Prince Kumar topped with 97% marks. Son of a DTC driver, Kumar scored 100 in mathematics, 99 in economics and 98 in chemistry.

Here are some highlights of Delhi’s government schools’ performance this year:

1. The Delhi region, which has over 1000 state government run CBSE schools, got the 3rd position in terms of city wise results.

2. Overall Delhi region pass percentage is 89%. Girls (88.31%) perform better than boys (78.99%)

3. In Delhi Government schools:

• Pass percentage has gone up by 2.37%, from 88.27% (in 2017) to 90.64% in 2018.

• 168 Govt schools achieved 100% results against 112 of last year.

• The number of schools that achieved more than 90 per cent pass percentage has gone up to 638 from 554 last year.

• Girlstudents (94.1%) outperformed boys (85.98%) in Government schools

• Total students appeared: 112,826, Passed: 102,260

• The results of Rajkiya Pratibha Vidyalaya, considered premium government schools in Delhi, is recorded at 99.79%.

FE Exclusive: Manish Sisodia Speaks On Delhi’s Development and Economy

Education has been the top focus of Kejriwal-led Delhi government. Speaking to Financialexpress.com earlier this year, Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia had said that Education and Health are part of his government’s ‘in-principle’ philosophy. “The biggest mistake our country has made since independence is we have not invested in education. We have invested on infrastructure, we have invested in other sectors as well, but education has been neglected. You can’t build up a nation, without the foundation of education,” he had said.

Sisodia had highlighted the resource his government was developing for students studying in schools, “the quarter of total budget is dedicated to education. We are developing infrastructure under this – which includes swimming pools, world-class astroturf for football, hockey and racing stadiums. On the other hand, we have developed classrooms, better auditoriums, libraries. We are giving world-class training to our teachers.”

A month after his statement, Sisodia presented his budget and also allocated Rs 13,997 crore, which is 26 per cent of the total budget, for the education sector in the budget for 2018-2019 fiscal. The new budget proposal has kept installation of CCTV cameras in school buildings, self-defence training for girl students, promotion of sports in schools and setting up of a world-class skill centre as big-ticket promises.

Another person widely credited for the Delhi’s education reforms is Atishi Marlena, former education advisor to Sisodia. After the results, Marlena took to Twitter and said, “Fantastic performance by Delhi govt schools in Class 12; the 90.64% result is 2.37% better than our own performance last year, and 7.6% higher than national CBSE average! Who would have thought this was possible?!”