B A T H I N D A    E D I T I O N

Edu Min’s turf draws blank
Bathinda, May 23
The tall claims of the state Education Minister, Sikander Singh Maluka, of improving the standard of education in government schools have fallen flat in his own constituency of Rampura Phul in his home district of Bathinda where he is the head of the Shiromani Akali Dal and Mansa district, where his wife belongs to.

Student ends life after failing in exam
Muktsar, May 23
A BA final year student allegedly ended his life by hanging himself from a tree near railway tracks at Kabarwala. He reportedly took the step after failing in exams.

 300 shortlisted at mega job fest in Moga village
Moga, May 23
Baba Ishar Singh (BIS) Group of Institutions conducted a mega job fest on its central campus at Gagra village in Dharamkot sub-division of Moga district today wherein at least 25 companies, including multinational, came from different fields to provide job opportunities to the candidates.

Class XII Merit List
Edu Min’s turf draws blank
Jupinderjit Singh
Tribune News Service

Bathinda, May 23
The tall claims of the state Education Minister, Sikander Singh Maluka, of improving the standard of education in government schools have fallen flat in his own constituency of Rampura Phul in his home district of Bathinda where he is the head of the Shiromani Akali Dal and Mansa district, where his wife belongs to.

Not a single student from any government school in his three main areas have made it to the merit list of Class XII of the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB). The two districts also fall in the parliamentary constituency of Bathinda MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal. Only four students from Bathinda and two from Mansa have found mention in the merit list. All of them were students of private schools.

The merit list includes those students who have scored 91.5 per cent or more. Ludhiana district topped the list with 136 students. The Education Minister had expressed happiness over the results in a press conference at Mohali saying the pass percentage had improved over the previous years.

On poor results in his constituency and his home district, Maluka said he was the minister of the whole state and not of one region only. He said during his tenure, mass copying came to an end as he does not believe in boasting of high marks obtained by unfair means. He said the overall picture of the state was better and it would improve further.

The Education Minister had taken a series of steps in his first and second terms in office. He had taken strong action against the schools performing badly, especially those where zero per cent students passed the exam. He also initiated the process for the posting of teachers in rural areas. All the steps do not seem to have worked well on his home turf.

Meanwhile, the Save Education Society, a group in Mansa working for the betterment of educational standards, has termed the shortage of teachers as the main reason for the bad result. There was a shortfall of nearly 50 per cent lecturers in Mansa and 75 per cent posts of the principals were also lying vacant.

The state government has provided the science stream in only 12 of the 43 schools in the district.

  Student ends life after failing in exam

Muktsar, May 23
A BA final year student allegedly ended his life by hanging himself from a tree near railway tracks at Kabarwala. He reportedly took the step after failing in exams.

Sources said Naresh Kumar, a resident of Ravidas Nagar in Malout, was in depression after he lost all chances of clearing the BA exams, which prompted him to take the extreme step.

The deceased’s father Hari Ram said Naresh had been missing since May 19. He claimed that his son ended life due to poor exam results.

Naresh’s body was found hanging from a tree on Wednesday evening. The body was handed over to the family members after conducting a post-mortem examination.

The police has initiated inquest proceedings under Section 174 of the CrPC. — TNS

 300 shortlisted at mega job fest in Moga village
Tribune News Service

Moga, May 23
Baba Ishar Singh (BIS) Group of Institutions conducted a mega job fest on its central campus at Gagra village in Dharamkot sub-division of Moga district today wherein at least 25 companies, including multinational, came from different fields to provide job opportunities to the candidates.

The students of engineering, pharmacy, biotechnology, information technology, management and other streams had come from various parts of the state to avail of the opportunity.

While inaugurating the fest, senior Akali leader and local MLA Jathedar Tota Singh addressed a gathering of the representatives of the companies and asked them to put more emphasis on rural areas while recruiting.

The Akali leader lauded the efforts of the private education sector in setting up institutes of higher education in rural areas.

The chairman of the BIS Group of Institutes, Dr JS Dhaliwal, distributed 50 tablets to the first 50 candidates who enrolled their names at the job fest and said more than 1000 youths had come seeking jobs.

At least, 300 youths had been shortlisted by the companies, he added.