In an attempt to educate all the children of the Punjab state, Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh announced that state will provide free education to all girls from Nursery to Doctorate of Philosophy (PhD).
Reasons behind the step
The intention of the state behind this action is to empower the status of women in India. Chief Minister gave this statement only a day after he announced a total waiver of crop loans up to Rs 2 lakh for small and marginal farmers and a flat relief of Rs 2 lakh for other marginal farmers. The announcement was made by Singh in Vidhan Sabha.
List of benefits announced
- Free textbooks will be given to all the students of the private schools and pre-primary classes
- "In order to promote English, a new project will take place in all government schools from Juy onwards under which two schools at all levels and from every block will have English medium from next month".
- State will set up five new colleges this year.
- WiFi facility will be provided in all 13,000 primary schools and in government colleges.
- Books will also be made available online from where students will be able to download them freely.
In order to empower the women further, reservation for women in Panchayati Raj Institutions and Urban Local Bodies has already been increased by the government from 33 percent to 50 percent. Punjab government is also planning to open two new sainik schools to train the students who are willing to join the armed forces.