Chief Minister Punjab Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif presided over a high-level meeting here to review the progress on the roadmap for reforms in the Punjab education sector.
The chief minister and the roadmap team expressed satisfaction over the progress. Addressing the meeting, Shehbaz Sharif said that the Punjab government has allocated historic funds to the education sector in the coming financial year. He added that Rs345 billion have been allocated to the education sector which is Rs 33 billion more than the amount earmarked in the outgoing financial year.
He said that hard work and determination are needed for the promotion of education. He said that the Punjab government has outsourced 4300 schools, resulting in an increase in the number of students enrolled there. The Chief Minister said that he believes that the outsourcing of public schools has will produce good results and a plan has been made to outsource 10,000 more schools.
He said that hard work is needed to achieve the target of enrolment ratio for the year2018. He added that the scholarships for female students under the Zaivare Taleem Program have been provided to students in 16 underdeveloped districts and 462,000 female students are benefitting from this program. For the upcoming financial year, the chief minister said, an amount of 6.5 billion rupees has been allocated for this purpose, he added. He said that thousands of additional classrooms are being constructed under Khadam-e-Punjab School Program. The chief minister said that 36,000 additional rooms in the primary schools will be constructed throughout the province. With this, he believes, enrollment in public schools will increase.
He said that the repair of the dilapidated buildings will be completed by June 2017. He said that under the voucher scheme of Punjab Education Foundation, 25 hundred thousand students have been enrolled and three hundred thousand more will be enrolled in 2018.
The chief minister directed the concerned authorities to fill all of the vacant posts in Schools Education Department. He said that the scope of the hotline, established by the Punjab Information Technology Board, to get feedback from the parents, will be expanded to 36 districts.
The chief minister said that special focus is being paid for the training of teachers and added that a mechanism should be devised to check the performance of teachers. He said that solar panels will be provided to 20000 schools without electricity under the Khadam-e-Punjab Ujala Scheme and this scheme will be launched from South Punjab. He said that hundreds of thousands of students will benefit from this project.
The meeting reviewed the proposal for opening community schools to enhance the rate of enrolment in the province. Sir Michael Barber told the meeting that Punjab government has made exceptional progress to achieve targets set to increase education standards. He said that the Punjab government, under the leadership of Shehbaz Sharif, has shown appreciable performance in the education sector.
The chief of DFID, Joanna Reed said that Shehbaz Sharif has made excellent utilisation of resources and that the Punjab government is heading in the right direction. He added that it is commendable that in the upcoming financial year, huge funds have been allocated to the education sector.
Managing Partner Delivery Associates Sir Michael Barber, Head DFID in Pakistan Joanna Reed, chief of Special Monitoring Unit Fatima Zaidi, DFID representative in Punjab Ruth Graham, other partners of roadmap team, provincial ministers Rana Mashhood Ahmed Khan, Ch Muhammad Shafique, Syed Raza Ali Gillani, Special Assistant Malik Muhammad Ahmed Khan, Vice Chairman Punjab Educational Endowment Fund Dr Amjad Saqib, Adviser Dr Umer Saif, Chairman Punjab Education Foundation MPA Engineer Qamar-ul-Islam, chief secretary, MPA Gull Naz Shehzadi, secretaries of concerning departments, educationists and senior officials were also present on the occasion.
