The second phase of Chief Minister’s Education Roadmap Program entitled ‘Parho Punjab, Barho Punjab’ formally launched in Rawalpindi division on Friday.
The launching ceremony was held under the aegis of School Education Department at Rawalpindi Arts Council with Punjab Education Foundation Chairman Engineer Qamar ul Islam Raja as the Chair. Commissioner Zahid Saeed, DCO Sajid Zafar Dall and EDO (Ed) Qazi Zahoor ul Haq also attended the ceremony
Chairman Punjab Education Foundation Qamar ul Islam Raja said that education roadmap program is biggest initiative of the provincial government to promote school education at the grassroots as well as to ensure that no child is left unattended for want of resources. In order to promote educational quality as well as to make it commensurate with the needs and requirements of the 21st century, second phase of the roadmap is launched with the slogan of ‘Parho Punjab, Barho Punjab.’ It is hoped that this phase will not only bring in qualitative change in our public sector schooling but will also help to achieve the target of 100 percent literacy in Punjab.
Qamar ul Islam, who is also the chairman of standing committee on education in Punjab Assembly, said that the promotion of education has always been the priority agenda of the Punjab government, adding that ample resources are provided every year to the school education department to achieve targets. As a result of concerted efforts of Shahbaz Sharif government, teachers’ attendance ratio has reached to 92 per cent, which is the best attendance according to world standards. Similarly, 1,100,000 additional students have also made it to schools. Punjab government has provided 12.5 million free textbooks to the students as well.
“We have established latest computer labs in 5,700 government schools in 36 districts in Punjab so that students could easily access latest knowledge resources through free internet facility.”
Qamar ul Islam said that Punjab Education Foundation is the biggest free school education program in Punjab, which has given free quality education to as much as 1.6 million students through a network of four thousand schools in all the districts of Punjab. PEF is targeted to educate a total of 2.8 million deserving students by 2018. He disclosed that PEF would enter into partnership with more than 15 hundred low-cost private schools in 36 Punjab districts during the current year.
The function was largely attended by educationists, NGOs representatives, general public, students, teachers and EDOs (edu) of Rawalpindi division.