Chandigarh, August 18, 2026 (Yes Punjab News)
Punjab has emerged as the top-performing state in school education in the NITI Aayog Report 2026-27, while 3.64 lakh students have shifted from private to government schools since 2022, Education Minister Harjot Singh Bains said on Tuesday.
Presenting the four-and-a-half-year status report of school education at a press conference at Punjab Bhawan, Bains attributed the changes to a ₹2,300-crore government programme focused on infrastructure, learning outcomes, technology, teacher training and student support.
He said that when the Bhagwant Mann government assumed office in March 2022, many government schools lacked basic facilities. According to him, a majority had no boundary walls, more than 5,000 lacked functional toilets, around four lakh students had to sit on floors, 500 schools did not have drinking water and textbooks were arriving as late as five months into the academic session.
The minister said the government has since constructed 13,920 toilets, distributed two lakh desks and built more than 9,000 classrooms and laboratories. More than 10,000 interactive panels have been installed, 5,012 schools have received advanced computer labs and all government schools have been equipped with Wi-Fi.
Bains also highlighted new sports infrastructure, including swimming pools, shooting ranges, basketball and tennis courts, kabaddi mats, and wrestling and boxing facilities.
On teacher development, he said principals were sent to Singapore, primary teachers to Finland and headmasters to IIM Ahmedabad for training in different batches.
The government has also deployed ex-servicemen as campus managers in all senior secondary schools. Two security guards have been posted at senior secondary schools with more than 500 students, while monthly cleaning grants ranging from ₹3,000 to ₹50,000 are being provided according to enrolment.
Bains said academic performance had also improved significantly. Over the past four years, 786 government school students qualified for JEE and 2,166 cleared NEET. NEET-UG qualifiers from government schools rose from 80 in 2021 to 882 in 2026, with 437 qualifying in 2024 and 847 in 2025. He said 361 students qualified for JEE Main, including 64 who cleared JEE Advanced.
According to Bains, Punjab topped the NITI Aayog report in classroom learning outcomes, surpassing Kerala, which had traditionally been regarded as a leading state in school education.
He said Punjab had become the first state to introduce Artificial Intelligence as a core subject from Class I to XII. Under the Business Blasters programme, 2.30 lakh students received practical business exposure, with ₹29 crore provided as seed money and students earning ₹3 crore in profits, he claimed.
The government has also opened 40 dedicated skill education schools for students who dropped out after Class 10. To reduce the financial burden on families, annual school fee increases have been capped at 5 per cent, while free bus services for government school students are benefiting more than 15,000 students daily across hundreds of schools.
Bains said the government continued its education programme despite floods in 2023 and 2025 that damaged more than 7,000 schools in Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Ropar, Ferozepur and Fazilka. In collaboration with the World Bank, 500 severely damaged schools are being restored, with most expected to be completed within six months.
Recalling the AAP’s 2022 election promise to improve government schools, Bains said the government had sought one opportunity from the people of Punjab and claimed that the reforms represented an effort to honour that mandate.
He said the government had invested an average of ₹15 lakh per school on infrastructure during the past four-and-a-half years.
Bains said he had personally visited more than 2,000 schools and pledged to continue the programme. He said the government aimed to ensure within the next two years that no school in Punjab lacked essential facilities, describing education as the government’s top priority.
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