Chandigarh, Aug 3 (SocialNews.XYZ) Punjab Education Minister Harjot Singh Bains on Monday told the Assembly that a Haryana-based cheating syndicate used modified mobile phones, hidden wireless earpieces, and other advanced gadgets to facilitate cheating during the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences pharmacy examination.
Participating in the discussion on the censure motion in the house over repeated paper leaks across the country and atrocities against protesting students, Bains also said Punjab has emerged as India’s number one state in school education.
On how the racket operated in the state’s Baba Farid University, he said: “This was not a paper leak. This was a technology-driven cheating operation busted by Punjab Police. For years the Haryana government looked away while this syndicate destroyed the future of thousands of students."
He advised Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini to fix his own backyard before coming to Punjab to set the political agenda.
Recalling Punjab’s rich legacy of knowledge, courage and sacrifice, Bains said from the hymns of the Rigveda to the world’s first university at Takshila, Punjab had always been a land of learning.
"From Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s darbar to the teachings of Sri Guru Nanak Dev and Sri Guru Arjan Dev, we have given the world the message of equality and education. From Shaheed Bhagat Singh who taught us to question power, to Dr Har Gobind Khorana who won a Nobel, to Dr Narinder Singh Kapany who gave the world fibre optics, to Dr Gurtej Singh Sandhu who revolutionised semiconductor memory, this soil has produced giants," he said.
"This is Punjab. This is our heritage. This is our pride. And we will not let anyone defame it, distort it or drag it down," he said.
Presenting the achievements of the state government under the Sikhya Kranti initiative, the Education Minister said Punjab’s government schools had delivered record academic results. He informed the house that 882 students from Punjab’s government schools had qualified NEET-UG 2026, registering a cumulative increase of more than 100 per cent from 437 qualifiers in 2024.
Highlighting national recognition, the Education Minister said Punjab had climbed from the 27th position in 2020 to become the number one ranked state in the NITI Aayog School Education Quality Report 2026, overtaking Kerala.
He further informed the House that Punjab has become the first state in India to introduce artificial intelligence as a mainstream subject from Classes 1 to 12. The initiative would cover 25,172 schools and nearly 31.5 lakh students, with the curriculum developed after studying best practices from Singapore, Finland, the UAE, and the US.
Source: IANS
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