100% school enrollment to be achieved by 2018: Shehbaz Sharif

Chief Minister Punjab Shehbaz Sharif presided over a meeting here on Friday to discuss measures being taken to promote education and continue ongoing educational programs.

Addressing the meeting, the chief minister said that the destination of progress and development could only be achieved by imparting the latest education and that the Punjab government had taken revolutionary measures for the same.

Shehbaz Sharif said that the target of 100 percent school enrollment would be achieved by 2018 and that no child would be deprived of education. He said that the attendance of teachers had increased due to the steps taken by the government and that basic facilities had been provided to 52,000 schools through an investment of Rs 40 billion. A sum of Rs 16 billion has been spent for the reconstruction of dilapidated school buildings and 36,000 new classrooms are being constructed, he added.

The chief minister said that labs have been constructed in 6,000 schools while hundreds of thousands of laptops have been distributed to students in a transparent way. He said that hundreds of thousands of more laptops would be distributed during the current year along with tablets being provided to schools.

Shehbaz Sharif said merit and transparency had been promoted in Punjab in every field and 220,000 teachers had been recruited purely on merit, adding that 80,000 more teachers would be recruited this year. He said that 14 Daanish schools had been established where top quality education is being imparted to students from poor families, bringing about a revolution in poor and undeveloped areas. He said the Punjab Education Endowment Fund (PEEF) had been set up to provide financial assistance to students from poor families and 175,000 students had benefited as a direct result of the scholarships.

He said thousands of students have become doctors, engineers, and bankers through scholarships from the PEEF. He said female matriculation students were receiving a monthly scholarship of Rs 1000 in 16 districts through the Khadam-e-Punjab Zawar-e-Taleem Program and that a sum of Rs4 billion is being spent every year on the project, providing aid to 462,000 students.

Provincial Ministers Rana Mashhood Ahmed Khan and Syed Ali Gillani, Adviser Dr Umer Saif, Punjab Education Foundation Chairman Qamarus Salam, the additional chief secretary, secretaries of concerned departments and other officials were also present during the meeting.