As many as 3.64 lakh students have moved from private schools to government schools in Punjab since 2022, Education Minister Harjot Singh Bains said on Tuesday, presenting what he described as the outcome of a Rs 2,300-crore overhaul of the state's public education system.
Releasing a four-and-a-half-year status report, Bains said the shift in enrolment demonstrated growing confidence in government schools following investments in infrastructure, technology, teacher training and student facilities since the Aam Aadmi Party government assumed office in March 2022.
The minister said the government had spent an average of around Rs 15 lakh per school on infrastructure during the period.
Rs 2,300 crore infrastructure push
Bains said the government had constructed 13,920 toilets, claiming that every government school in Punjab now had access to functional toilets.
Around two lakh desks have also been supplied to schools, which the minister said had eliminated the practice of children sitting on classroom floors.
More than 9,000 classrooms and laboratories have been constructed, while over 10,000 interactive panels have been installed in classrooms. Another 5,012 schools have received upgraded computer laboratories.
According to Bains, all government schools in Punjab now have Wi-Fi connectivity, while 99.9 per cent have boundary walls.
He contrasted these figures with the conditions the AAP government says it inherited in 2022, when more than 5,000 schools allegedly lacked functional toilets, around four lakh students sat on floors and approximately 500 schools did not have drinking-water facilities.
Bains also claimed textbooks were arriving as much as five months late at the time.
Sports facilities expanded
The minister said the infrastructure programme had extended beyond conventional classrooms.
Government schools have been provided with facilities including swimming pools, shooting ranges, basketball and tennis courts, kabaddi mats and wrestling and boxing rings, he said.
The government has also introduced measures for campus management and security. Former Army personnel have been deployed as campus managers at senior secondary schools, while institutions with more than 500 students have been provided two security guards each.
Schools are receiving monthly cleaning grants ranging from Rs 3,000 to Rs 50,000 depending on their enrolment, according to the minister.
Teachers trained abroad
Teacher training has been another prominent element of the government's education programme.
Bains said batches of government school principals had been sent to Singapore for professional training, while primary teachers received training in Finland. Headmasters were sent to the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad for management and leadership programmes.
The government has repeatedly presented these overseas and institutional training programmes as an attempt to expose teachers and school administrators to different educational practices and management models.
Bains linked the initiatives to the AAP's 2022 Assembly election campaign, during which improving government schools was one of the party's principal promises.
AAP won 92 seats in the election, and the minister said the scale of that mandate had placed an obligation on the government to deliver on its education commitments.
NEET qualifiers rise sharply
Bains also highlighted competitive examination results as evidence of improving academic outcomes.
According to figures presented by him, 2,166 students from Punjab government schools qualified NEET over the past four years, while 786 qualified JEE.
The minister said the number of government school students qualifying NEET-UG increased from 80 in 2021 to 882 in 2026. The figure stood at 437 in 2024 before rising to 847 in 2025 and 882 this year.
In engineering entrance examinations, 361 government school students qualified JEE Main in the latest results, while 64 cleared JEE Advanced, he said.
Bains cites learning outcomes
The minister also cited Punjab's performance in the NITI Aayog Report 2026-27, saying the state had ranked first in classroom learning outcomes and moved ahead of Kerala.
The government has sought to combine improvements in physical infrastructure with measures intended to improve classroom teaching and learning outcomes.
Bains argued that the movement of students from private institutions into government schools was particularly important because public education systems have historically struggled with perceptions around quality despite providing substantially cheaper education.
Private school fee cap
The minister also highlighted measures intended to reduce education costs for families whose children remain in private schools.
The Punjab government has capped annual increases in private school fees at a maximum of 5 per cent, Bains said, describing education expenses as a growing burden on households.
The government is presenting its four-and-a-half-year record as evidence that substantial investment in public schools can improve both infrastructure and parental confidence.
However, the longer-term measure of the reforms will be whether infrastructure improvements and increased expenditure translate into sustained gains in learning, attendance and educational outcomes.
For the Mann government, the reported movement of 3.64 lakh children from private to government schools is being projected as one of the clearest indicators that its education programme has begun changing perceptions of Punjab's public school system.