Chandigarh, Feb 4 (IANS): Punjab has emerged as a pioneer state in the country for bringing in qualitative improvement in school education in the past three years, the Economic Survey 2020-21 has said.

Punjab has reported the highest attendance rate in the country of 61.6 per cent in the age group of 3-5 years i.e. early childhood education.

Punjab School Education Minister Vijay Inder Singla said on Thursday that the state is witnessing a revolution in school education.

"With a view to strengthen the foundation of the learning level from the very beginning, our government, under the leadership of Chief Minister Amarinder Singh is also the first in the country to start pre-primary classes on November 14, 2017. This achievement also marks the continuous efforts of the school teachers as well who have been working hard to transform the government schools," he said.

Singla said the dedicated efforts have fructified in the form of overwhelming response from the community as in 2018-19 the enrolment in pre-primary was 2.13 lakh, in 2019-20 it rose to 2.25 lakh and in 2020-21 the government schools have witnessed unprecedented enrolment of around 3.30 lakh students.

He said it indicated the change in the mindset as well as the trust being reposed by people in the reforms in school education in Punjab.

The minister said the pre-primary classrooms in about 13,000 government schools have been equipped with state-of-the-art "Khed Mahals' (playway classes) so that the students could be taught with a play way method.