Minister Education Punjab Mujtaba Shuja-ur-Rehman said on Saturday that education remained top priority of the provincial government and that his government had taken new initiative in the field of education during the last four years.
He said that the Punjab government had spent Rs 19 billion during last four years to provide missing facilities in 8749 schools of the province, whereas Rs 5 billion would be spent during the current fiscal year for provision of more facilities in two thousand schools. He maintained that as a result of the education friendly policies of the present government, literacy rate had been raised from 58% to 62% in last four years.
The education minister said further that during the year 2008-09 Rs 2.5 billion, 2009-10 Rs 4 billion, 2010-11 Rs 4 billion and 2011-12 Rs 4 billion were spent to provide basic facilities in 1540, 1712, 1813 and 1684 schools of the province respectively. He informed that record funds of Rs 5100 million had been allocated for the provision of missing facilities in 2000 schools of the province during the current fiscal year.
The minister said that stipend Rs 1 billion was being distributed in the girl students belonging to remote and deprived areas to encourage female education. He said that government had step-up endowment fund with rupees 10 billion, from which talented and deserving students were getting scholarship for higher studies.
Mujtaba Shuja-ur-Rehman told that Punjab government had provided a sum of Rs 10 billion to promote school education in the marginalized strata and 1.5 million deserving students in the 36 districts would be benefited during current year. He told that a sum of Rs 46 billion would be spent on the education sector to elevate it according to the international standards. “The government has recruited 36 thousand school teachers and 30 thousand subject specialists purely on merit,” he concluded.