SoE, Meritorious Schools: Joint entrance exam on March 30

Neha Saini

Amritsar, March 6

The date for holding entrance exams to be conducted by the State Educational Research and Training Council, Punjab, for admission in Class IX and XI in School of Eminence (SoE) and Meritorious Schools for the session 2024-25 has been announced for March 30.

While the admissions to the Schools of Eminence that were inaugurated in September last year, were done through entrance exam conducted half way through the year, this time, the applications have been invited online from students, who want to take admission in SoE.

The decision has once again raised the issue of discriminatory policies to create disparity in education among students.

Several government teachers and teachers’ union members have responded to the announcement, calling it another attempt to advertise the ‘education revolution in state’ as half-hearted. “The fact that these Schools of Eminence have classes from grade 1 onwards, which means that there are students of primary and middle grades in these schools, who are being ignored. Only focussing on taking meritorious students in four senior classes and providing them with best of education infrastructure would mean nothing, if the learning is not improved from early classes onwards. How the education to be improved and made best in state, if only a handful of students would only benefit from the so called upgraded infrastructure,” said a teacher from government school in Mehta block.

Last year, when the SoEs were introduced, the teachers had raised objection to the policy, including the Democratic Teachers Front (DTF) Punjab that the state government was trying to compartmentalise education by only focussing on certain classes. The district unit of government teachers’’ union had also called out Punjab government’s ‘questionable’ education policies. The teachers from Meritorious School, Amritsar had also shared that such concept of filtering students on the basis of merit is already in place in meritorious schools.

Meanwhile, now with Schools of Applied Learning and Schools of Happiness announced in the budget session today, the results of such policies on improving the public education in state remains to be seen.

‘Discriminatory’ policies

• While the admissions to the Schools of Eminence that were inaugurated in September last year, were done through entrance exam conducted half way through the year, this time, the applications have been invited online from students, who want to take admission in SoE
• The decision has once again raised the issue of discriminatory policies to create disparity in education among students