While six meritorious schools in Punjab began their academic sessions two months ago, the newly opened seventh such school, for only girls at Talwara of Hoshiarpur district, will finally begin its classes Wednesday. The girl students, however, will have to stay in a provisional hostel at the Government Polytechnic College close by. Their hostel may not even be ready by the end of this year, sources said.

The meritorious schools are the brainchild of Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and aim to provide quality education to government school students who have scored above 80 per cent. The Talwara all-girls meritorious school was added this year but offers only the humanities stream. Its announcement was made on June 16 when the counselling for the other six meritorious schools was about to end. The school offers Mathematics, History, Economics and Political Science besides the compulsory subjects of English and Punjabi. It has about 150 seats.

Sources said lack of hostel facilities wasn’t the only problem as authorities found it difficult to convince students, who had scored over 80 per cent, to opt for the humanities at Talwara.

“There was no point in starting this school this session when the school building at Talwara do not fill the meritorious school requirements. The Punjab government, just to take credit for opening a meritorious school, began it without proper home work,” said a senior officer in the education department, adding a much work was pending at the school.

“The session in other meritorious schools began July 11, we do not know how to cover the syllabus,” said a student of this school.