Punjab Minister for Education Mujtaba Shuja-ur-Rehman said the provincial government was pursuing a comprehensive policy for the promotion and up-gradation of school education.
He said the Punjab Government had spent Rs 19 billion during its present tenure to provide missing facilities in 8,749 schools of the province, whereas Rs 5 billion would be spent during the current fiscal year for provision of missing facilities in two thousand schools.
He said that IT labs had been set up in more than 5000 high schools and 515 middle schools. He further said that scholarships worth ten billion rupees were being provided to thousands of students within the country and abroad from endowment funds.
While talking to a delegation of school teachers, the minister informed that 3,068 primary and middle schools had been upgraded at a cost of Rs 13,005 million during the last four years and more than 70,000 teachers had been recruited on merit in a transparent manner for removing shortage of school teachers throughout the province. He further stated that modern science labs had been established in 1,000 high schools of the province at a cost of one billion rupees. The Punjab Education Endowment Fund had been used to grant scholarships to 50,000 students, he added.