NEW DELHI:Directorate of Education of Delhi celebrated the excellence in the academic performance of its students and schools by organizing the ‘Excellence in Education Awards’ ceremony here on Wednesday. Deputy Chief Minister and the Education Minister of Delhi, Shri Manish Sisodia congratulated the meritorious students for their sheer hard work and felicitated top-performing schools of Delhi for recording outstanding results in Board exams. The event was organized by the Department of Education at Thyagraj Stadium.
Praising the academic fraternity for its continued efforts to achieve the best, Manish Sisodia said, “ There was a time when people used to look down upon the quality of education provided in the government schools. But today, I can proudly say that parents are trying many ways including bribery in order to get their kids admitted in our schools. In a recent report issued by NITI Aayog, Delhi is ranked No.1 in the field of Education under the UT category. This is a moment of pride for our team as our efforts have finally reaped fruits. 5-6 years ago, we used to record around 80% marks as the highest scores at the boards, but now we are recording more than 90% marks scored by our school toppers. The highest being 96.2% marks awarded by CBSE board to one of our students. Government schools are continuously outperforming even private schools of Delhi.”
Stressing on the fact that it’s not their mission to compete against private schools, but to strive towards raising their own bar every day when it came to education, Deputy CM added, “Our focus is to shape a bright future for the 40 lakh students of Delhi hailing from both government and private schools. As a part of the Education Department of Delhi, we are continuously working to not just provide excellent education to only a small fraction of these students , that is , a mere 5-10% of them, but we want to improve the quality of education for the rest 90% of the students who are exposed to only “kaam-chaalau” unsatisfactory levels of education. This is our ultimate goal and I am happy to see that we have achieved it to a major extent.”
Education Minister of Delhi, Shri Manish Sisodia also spoke about the importance of ensuring proper infrastructure in schools and making a student-friendly environment to study. Functional washrooms, equipped labs, proper blackboards and desks, with painted walls of schools go a long way in motivating the students to attend their schools.
SKV Railway Colony, Tuglakabad won the State Best School award and a cash prize of Rs One lakh. A total of 211 meritorious students also walked away with medals and a cash prize of Rs 5000 each.
Manish Sisodia also said that to be a successful individual, one also needs to think about the future of the coming generations, “ To tell you a story, I came across a brave girl of class 12th who had the courage to speak up about the fees of board exams that her parents could not afford. It struck me then that if the Delhi Govt. can provide free books, free uniforms then why don’t we also take care of this examination fees charged from our students. Today, CBSE has done away with the fees of almost 3 lakh students of Delhi government schools, all thanks to the courage of that little girl.”
Deputy CM and Education Minister of also tweeted about the awards ceremony later today.
“Pleasure to honor stellar students and the best performing #DelhiGovtSchools at the one of its kind, annual Excellence in School Education Awards, organised by Delhi govt at Thyagraj Stadium today. Such hard work towards real nation-building should never go unrecognized!”
He concluded his address by citing the examples that Delhi schools have set in terms of its innovative curriculum like -Happiness curriculum and Entrepreneurship Mindset Curriculum and how delegates from other countries are visiting the capital of India to learn more about these programs. He also congratulated the Education Department which has set an example for others to follow. “I am pleased to see how teachers and principals of other states from across our country are coming to Delhi schools to learn about teaching and education from our very own team.”
Awards and cash prize of Rs 50, 000 each were given to schools recording outstanding results and delivering excellent students, under the District level category. A total of 12 schools have bestowed the award of District Best schools. These were SKV (Ravindra Thakur), East Vinod Nagar (East); GGSSS, Vijay Park, Maujpur (North East); SKV Magazine Road (North); Ravi Shankar, SKV, Bawana Delhi (North West A); SKV C-Block, Sultan Puri (North West B), SKV Ranjit Nagar (West A), SKV SP Road, Nangloi (West B); SKV IARI Pusa (South West A); Govt. Co. Ed. SSS, Dwarka (South West-B), Sarvodya Kanya Vidyalaya, Mandi Village (South); GSRSKV, C-Block Defence Colony (South East); and SKV NO-2, Jama Masjid Delhi (Central).
While the Rajikya Pratibha Vikas Vidyalaya (RPVV) Shalimar Bagh walked bagged the award of Best RPVV all thanks to its performance at academics reflected in the CBSE Board results of its students every year, 27 other schools were felicitated under the Zonal Best Schools category. These included SKV C Block, Vivek Vihar; SKV Andrews Ganj; GGSSS Dr Ambedkar Nagar and GGSSS Ashok Nagar. A cash prize of Rs 21000 was awarded to each of the schools.