Senior Sindh Education and Literacy Minister Pir Mazharul Haq has urged the educational heads for gearing up their efforts to maintain close contact with community leaders for achieving the mandatory goal of providing quality education across the province. The education minister said this during a meeting with the heads of cadet, army and public schools held at the minister’s office to discuss distribution of annual grant cheques. He said that the Sindh government is taking concrete steps to provide quality education, whereas the reputed educational institutions being run by the army, navy and others are imparting quality education to young students across the province.
The World Bank and other donor agencies are helping the provincial government in imparting quality education, so the government judges the educational institutions purely on the basis of performance, following which they are provided with funds and grants, he added. The minister said that these institutions were provided with very low grants in the past, but the present government has doubled their grants and provided them with all the necessary, including infrastructural, support.
He stressed upon the educational heads to inform the government of all their requirements so that the government could consider them before providing them with assistance. He appreciated the efforts made by the Sindh Planning and Development Department for considering and clearing the development schemes of the education sector. Planning and Development Additional Secretary Ashfaq Qadri briefed the participants of the meeting regarding the Rs 16 million that had been distributed last month among six educational institutions of Dadu, Petaro, Larkana, Sehwan, Sukkur and Jacobabad each.
Five more educational institutions of Petaro, Mithi, Thatta, Badin and Chachar each are being provided with Rs 9 million; besides them, more funds and grants would be provided to educational institutions in the future, he added.
The education minister said that the government would visit Mithi, Thatta and Badin’s educational institutions and observe how the funds are being utilised for dealing with their requirements and improving their conditions. He advised the educational heads to conduct seminars, lectures, and social and cultural events to attract the youth and locals for imparting quality education at their representative institutions for the betterment of the future of the coming generation. The meeting was also attended by Cadet College Petaro Principal Cdre Muhammad Afzal, Army Public School and College Badin Principal Maj (retd) Zahid, Army Public School and College Thatta Principal Shafiq Ahmed Ansari, Member Provincial Assembly Kulsoom Chandio, Sindh Madressatul Islam Principal Dr Muhammad Ali Shaikh, Non-formal Education Director Muhammad Sajan Mallah, and Planning Director Mehdi Baloch.
