KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has directed the School Education Department to select at least 4,000 schools and provide them all the facilities within next six months for which he approved Rs6 billion.
He issued these directives while presiding over a meeting of the Education Department (schools) at the CM House here on Wednesday. The meeting was attended by Education Minister Jam Mehtab Dahar, Chief Secretary Rizwan Memon, P&D Chairman Mohammad Waseem, Principal Secretary to CM Sohail Rajput, Education Secretary Iqbal Durani, Finance Secretary Hassan Naqvi and others.
Education Secretary Iqbal Durani while giving a presentation to the CM said that there were around 4,000 schools which do not have the facility of washrooms. On this, the chief minister said that he has been listening to the reports of missing facilities. He asked for the 4,000 schools to be provided with facilities such as compound wall, library, teachers’ room, lab (if necessary), washrooms, drinking water and electricity. He added that schools where power connection was not possible must be solarised.
When told that the project would cost Rs6 billion, the CM gave his approval: “I want this to be done within six months. This is a target you have to achieve”, he said.
The chief minister was told that the enrollment in government schools was recorded at 4,249,033 in 2012 and it is almost the same in 2016-17. On this the CM said that when the schools would have no basic facilities, the parents are reluctant to enroll their children. ‘Once the 4,000 schools are holistically improved, the enrollment ratio would increase automatically,” he said.
The School Education secretary told the chief minister that there are 38,132 primary schools in the province; of them 4,303 are girls and 28,520 mixed. Middle schools are 2,241, including 545 girls and 1,377 mixed. The number of secondary schools is 1,719 while 291 are higher secondary schools.
The chief minister said that against 38,132 primary schools, the number of middles schools at 2,241 is negligible. He directed the department to increase the number of middle schools by giving them additional rooms. “But, the decision to upgrade primary schools to middle schools must be made on need and merit basis,” he said.
The meeting was told that the enrollment in primary schools is 2,735,156 against which 91,092 primary teachers are working. The student-teacher ratio is not bad but “we have to focus on capacity building of the teachers,” he said and directed the minister of Education to rationalise teachers’ transfer postings.
The chief minister also directed the Education secretary to develop school-wise data under which number of students and teachers working there, their budget, facilities and area must be included. “I want to develop a system under which school specific data should be made available so that their problems and issues could be identified forthwith for redressal,” he said.
Syed Murad Ali Shah said that he was keen to introduce modern primary education in the province for which spade work must be started so that it could be introduced from the next session. “Primary education is the basis and foundation. If the foundation is strong, the building would remain strong,” he said, adding, therefore, latest teaching methods must be adopted.
The chief minister decided that he would review the progress of the agenda set for developing complete infrastructure of 4,000 schools every fortnight.
