Terming the plight of government schools and teachers in Punjab as a “misfortune”, Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) national convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday gave eight guarantees to the teachers for comprehensive education reforms in the state, including time-bound promotions, cashless medical facility, suitable working environment, transparent transfer policy, regularising all contractual teachers, no non-teaching jobs, filling all vacancies, and training from abroad or management institutes.

Kejriwal promised that these eight guarantees would be implemented on priority basis as soon as the AAP government is formed in 2022. At the same time, he called upon all teachers to join AAP’s campaign to transform Punjab’s government school education system like Delhi.

“The eight guarantees include creating a Delhi-like environment in the education sector in Punjab, regularizing outsourcing and contractual teachers, implementing a transparent transfer policy, banning non-teaching work from teachers, permanent recruitment on vacant posts, sending teachers abroad for training, bringing in a transparent policy for new promotions and providing cashless medical facilities for teachers and their family members,” said Kejriwal, accompanied by AAP’s Punjab unit president Bhagwant Mann, while interacting with the media at Amritsar.

Promising to secure all types of raw, outsourced, and contract teachers, Kejriwal said: “Most of the teachers in Punjab have been working for only Rs 10,000 per month for the last 18 years which is a joke and unjust with a teacher.”

Appealing to Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi, Kejriwal said that the two demands of the protesting teachers — to fill vacancies and make the raw teachers permanent — should be immediately accepted. “If the Channi Government does not do so, during my next visit to Punjab, I will go to the teachers' dharna and the demands of the teachers will be met on the formation of the AAP government,” he said.

He also promised that the teachers’ transfer policy would be based on their own choice and posting near home will be implemented.

“Like the Delhi teachers are sent abroad for training, similarly, teachers from Punjab would also be sent... The teachers of Delhi have been trained in modern teaching methods in Finland, Canada, USA, and England, along with the management institutes of the country and similar training would be imparted to the teachers of Punjab,” he announced.

“I have been speaking to teachers for the last one month who pointed out that the condition of government schools in Punjab is extremely bad. As many as 2.4 million children are studying in government schools and their future is in danger. The teachers told me that there are many schools where there are no teachers,” he said.

The Delhi chief minister also pointed out that before the AAP’s rule, schools in the national capital were also in a bad state.

After seven years, remarkable work has been done in government schools of Delhi, Kejriwal said, adding, the model is being discussed not just in India, but the entire world.

“We want to bring reforms in government schools of Punjab as we did in Delhi.”