The Punjab government’s new admission drive in schools to ensure 100 percent literacy in the province gained a fresh momentum after the secretary schools has directed the executive district officers (EDOs) to take penal action against the education officers who fail to achieve the desired targets. A dead line of May 31 has been announced and the teachers of the schools not achieving the admission targets will be required to work also during summer holidays. Meanwhile, the Faisalabad EDO (education) has suspended four assistant education officers and 17 teachers for not taking interest in fulfilling the target.
It is also reported that show-cause notices have been served upon eight headmasters in this context. A recent report on the state of education in the province says that despite billions of rupees being pumped into the primary education sector, specially aimed at boosting the enrolment of children of poor families, 3.8 million children in Punjab have no access to education. The major reasons for low enrolment rates are lack of proper buildings for government schools, absence of teachers, poverty and domestic compulsions. The most significant factor impeding the Punjab government’s literacy drive is abject poverty according to a survey.
Therefore, the poverty-stricken households in these times of raging inflation force their children into menial jobs and all the temptations to attract them to literacy, being a promise to bright future, have been dampened against their struggle for economic survival at this critical time. Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s launching of Danish Schools Scheme across the province is welcoming, but again the main question is how to bring around four million children to schools.
To address that problem you need to bring out a general strategy touching the communities lying at the economic bottom line. Danish schools are proving counterproductive to the general literacy drive because all eyes in the education ministry are now focused on them which have marginalised the primary education system of the province. There must be someone in the education ministry to re-focus his energies on improving general conditions in thousands of government schools which are being neglected and making education accessible to all instead of a few hundred high-flying students only. The real success lies in providing inexpensive and quality education to the millions of children who have not seen the inside of a school.
It is very much clear that the Punjab government should devise a roadmap for the primary education sector that is to be strengthened in the real sense. The primary education staff is the most problematic area, especially in rural areas. There are many cases in which the teachers take rest on cots under the shady trees of the school premises, putting the pupils on auto-learning mode. Lack of commitment and absence of professional competence among the primary teachers is the root of all evils in the domain of literacy. This is the major contributing factor having its origin in the political-based appointment of teaching staff in the past.
This unproductive factor is likely to kill all initiatives in future unless and until a whole new generation of efficient, educated and diligent workforce is entrusted with the paramount national duty of mass education. Traders demand release of Riaz Chawala: A number of trade organisations representing the business community of Faisalabad have condemned the arrest of renowned local businessman Riaz Chawala and appealed to Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif to order his release. Addressing a press conference on Sunday, they declared his arrest illegal and maintained that the charges against him were of civil nature, but he had been detained under criminal charges.
They warned that harassment of businessmen through false allegations could undermine the business and trade environment. Riaz Chawala son of Arshad Chawala, a renowned industrialist, was arrested by the police this week for issuing bank cheques of Rs 400 million that were bounced. The accused had issued these cheques to the Bank of Punjab for settlement of his loan payments. The press conference was attended by Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers Association Chairman Chuadhry Salamat Ali, FCCI former President Mian Hamid Javed, industrialists Mian Aftab Ahmed, Mian Farhan Latif, Mian Naeem Ahmed Shahid, Sheikh Azhar Majeed and Mahmood Alam Jatt.
