The Bhagwant Mann government on Wednesday assured the assembly that there will be no government school in Punjab with a single or no teachers by March 2024.
Education Minister Harjot Singh Bains said of the 20,000 state-run schools, 3,500 were either teacherless or working with a single teacher before the Mann dispensation assumed charge in March 2022.
The education minister was speaking during Question Hour on the concluding day of the assembly's two-day session.
"Now, the number of such schools is less than 600. By March, Punjab will be the first state in the country where there will be no school without a teacher or (with) a single teacher," the AAP leader told the assembly.
Bains made the statement while replying to a question from Shiromani Akali Dal MLA Sukhwinder Kumar Sukhi, who sought to know if there is any policy of reservation in admissions for the education of children belonging to Scheduled Caste, backward classes and economically weaker families in private schools.
(With PTI inputs)
