New Delhi, May 29
HRD Minister Smriti Irani today broke her silence on the controversy surrounding her educational qualification and two varying affidavits filed before the Election Commission by asking people to judge her by her work.

“I would appeal to people to judge me by my work. Extraneous circumstances are being created to try and deviate me from the task that has been entrusted to me. My party gave me the responsibility because of my capacity to deliver an assignment. Please judge me by my work. I would make no further comment,” she said. The minister spent her day at office where she questioned her ministry officials about lack of separate toilets for girls in a large number of government schools.

During back-to-back presentations made by bureaucrats to orient the minister with the ongoing schemes of the ministry, especially the Right to Education Act, Smriti is learnt to have stressed the need for quality education at schools and higher education levels and bridging the quality gap between government and private schools.

She raised the concern around absence of girls’ toilets in government schools despite the fact that this indicator is among infrastructure targets states have to complete under the RTE Act, whose deadline expired on March 31 last year. “She was concerned about school education and poor quality of learning in government schools vis-à-vis private though she also flagged the quality issue for higher levels,” sources said.