BJP, Cong don't talk about education, AAP only wants to educate children: Kejriwal

Neither the BJP nor the Congress talked about education during their rule in Delhi, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal alleged on Monday and asserted the AAP dispensations politics is all about providing education to children.He made the remarks at the inauguration of a building of a government school for girls in west Delhis Uttam Nagar.The Aam Aadmi Party claimed that Lt Governor V K Saxena was invited for the inauguration ceremony but he did not attend.

Neither the BJP nor the Congress talked about education during their rule in Delhi, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal alleged on Monday and asserted the AAP dispensation's politics is all about providing education to children.

He made the remarks at the inauguration of a building of a government school for girls in west Delhi's Uttam Nagar.

The Aam Aadmi Party claimed that Lt Governor V K Saxena was invited for the inauguration ceremony but he did not attend. There was no immediate reaction to the claims.

At the event, Kejriwal said the school was built in 1985 and since then it was running under tin sheds.

''In the 37 years since this school was built, different political parties came to power in Delhi. Neither the Congress nor the BJP talked about building good quality schools during election rallies. Only the AAP said this as our entire politics is based on providing the best of facilities to our children,'' he said.

Kejriwal said his government was just the ''means to educate children''. He said, ''Probably God was waiting for the AAP to come to power and improve the condition of schools.'' ''When children from poor families entered government schools, they felt let down by the facilities. Since I have worked with NGOs in the past, I am aware that if a girl and a boy are born into poor families, the girl would be sent to a government school. But for the boy, the family would make sacrifices and save money to try and send him to a private school. ''The girls in such cases felt very upset. But they were aware that as soon as they completed class 8 or 10, they would be taken out of the school and later married off,'' he said.

The chief minister stressed the government schools being built in Delhi have excellent facilities. Parents across Delhi have taken their children out of private schools and admitted them to government schools, he said.

''Very few schools in Delhi are left to be modernised,'' Kejriwal said.

About the challenges ahead, Kejriwal said the AAP is in power in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and it wants to improve the condition of 1,800 schools of the civic body.

''It will take time but I assure you that we will fix them. In five years we managed to fix all government schools in Delhi. It will take us another five to seven years to fix the MCD schools, but we will get there,'' he said.

Kejriwal said the biggest challenge for any government at this time is to create jobs for the youth.

Despite going to such good schools and colleges and getting their degrees, if the students are unable to find jobs then this entire process of education will become redundant, he said.

Referring to the Delhi government's initiatives to address the issue of providing employment, the Delhi chief minister said the 'Business Blasters' programme is a step in this direction.

''From Class 11 onwards we want to give individual attention to every child in our school and we want to see that they have an aim. Our model of education is not such that we provide you education and then you fend for yourself after Class 12,'' he said.

Kejriwal said the 'Business Blasters' initiative has been running in the government schools of Delhi for the last three years and efforts will be made to further refine the programme.

''Our focus now is to implement this initiative in colleges and universities as well. We have to prepare our children to become a job-provider instead of a job-hunter,'' he said.

Until now, the school offered arts and vocational subjects. However, in the new building, starting from the next academic year, students will also have the option to choose science and commerce streams, officials said.

After the school building's inauguration, Delhi Education Minister Atishi, at a press conference, said, ''L-G Saxena did not show up today. We waited for quite some time. The inauguration ensued peacefully and there was no issue. I do not know why he did not turn up. ''There is another event in two weeks where a school will be inaugurated. We will send details to LG sir and he is welcome to take credit,'' Atishi said at the press conference.

There was no immediate reaction from the LG office to her claims.

Her comments also come against the backdrop of sloganeering at the inauguration of the newly built campus of Indraprastha University in east Delhi last week where Kejriwal and Saxena were both present.