Chandigarh, August 19: Punjab has emerged as the leading state in school education in the NITI Aayog Report 2026–27, overtaking Kerala through a comprehensive ₹2,300 crore reform program implemented over the last four and a half years.
Addressing a press conference at Punjab Bhawan on Tuesday to present the status report on school education, Education Minister Harjot Singh Bains affirmed that sustained investment in government schools has driven a major shift in public trust. He noted that 3.64 lakh students have moved from private institutions to government schools since March 2022.
Recalling the election mandate, Minister Harjot Singh Bains stated that AAP National Convenor Arvind Kejriwal and Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann had sought a single opportunity from voters to repair the state’s schooling network, which resulted in a 92-seat victory.
The Minister maintained that the educational infrastructure inherited in 2022 faced severe shortcomings, including thousands of facilities lacking boundary walls, functional toilets, desks, or drinking water access, alongside delayed textbook distributions.
To address these gaps, the state government invested an average of ₹15 lakh per school, delivering 13,920 new toilets, 2 lakh desks, over 9,000 classrooms and laboratories, 10,000 interactive panels, Wi-Fi coverage, and upgraded computer labs state-wide. The Minister asserted that schools now also feature specialized sports infrastructure, such as swimming pools, shooting ranges, and tennis courts.
Teacher training received a significant push with international and national exposures at institutions in Singapore, Finland, and IIM Ahmedabad. Furthermore, ex-Army personnel were appointed as campus managers, security guards were deployed at larger schools, and dedicated cleaning funds were released monthly.
Academic outcomes recorded strong gains, with 786 government school students qualifying for JEE and 2,166 clearing NEET over the last four years. In 2026 alone, 882 students cracked NEET-UG, reflecting a sharp increase from 80 in 2021.
The state also introduced Artificial Intelligence into the core curriculum from Class I to XII, launched the Business Blasters initiative with ₹29 crore in seed capital, established 40 skill education centers for dropouts, restricted annual private school fee increases to 5 percent, and provided free transportation to over 15,000 students daily. Despite severe flood damage to over 7,000 schools across two separate years, restoration work on 500 critically impacted sites is moving forward in partnership with the World Bank.
