- CM stresses on inducting more sciences, Mathematics and English teachers
- As many as 483 schools upgrades to middle, high-level
- Education minister admits that approximately 6,413,227 children still out-of-school
KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Friday directed the Education Department to update curriculum syllabus and textbooks to align them with the United Nations Sustainable Goals 2030 for which special focus would be given for improvement of science, mathematics and English language books.
This he said that while presiding over a meeting to improve school education system here at the Chief Minister House. The meeting was attended by Education Minister Syed Sardar Shah, Principal Secretary to CM Sajid Jamal Abro, Education Secretary Qazi Shahid Parvez, Sindh Education Foundation Managing Director Ms Shah and other concerned persons.
He said that the improvements in the syllabus and textbooks to align them with UN Sustainable Goals 2013 must be made. “We have a very small number of sciences’, Maths and English teachers, therefore their recruitment should be made through a special recruitment process,” he said.
Briefing the chief minister, School Education Qazi Secretary Shahid Pervaiz said that 483 schools have been upgraded to the middle and high school levels, and the buildings of 185 existing primary and secondary schools have been reconstructed, 214 shelterless schools have been provided with new buildings and three public schools at Ghotki, Tando Adam and Umerkot have been established.
The chief minister was told that 4206 high enrolment schools are being provided with basic missing facilities like boundary walls, washrooms, drinking water, furniture and construction of additional classrooms. Some 2632 schools would be made functional by June 30, 2019, he was further assured.
Replying to a question of the chief minister, Education Minister Sardar Shah said there are a total of 22,844,303 children in the province of which the number of out of school children is around 6,413,227, including 3,383,270 girls. At this, the chief minister said that it must be made a priority of the government to bring these schools back to school.
Education Minister Syed Sardar Shah to a question of the chief minister said that the major problems of the dropout of school children include a dearth of post-primary schools in transition, missing facilities in 9839 schools, 17,701 single school teachers and 4,910 shelter-less schools.
The chief minister was told that out of 43 state-of-art high-schools constructed under USAID-funded Sindh Basic Education Programme, 20 have been handed over to their respective managements to run them on public-private mode.
Under the abovementioned programme, 106 schools would be constructed. With the assistance of JAICA 45 primary (primary/middle) schools have been constructed in remote areas of the province.
It was pointed out that 5517 schools which served as polling stations during general elections 2018 were provided with missing facilities and 1366 schools were provided clean drinking water.
The chief minister said that the initiatives of his government to provide a stipend to 340,000 girl students at a rate of Rs3500 per child is a good initiative. “We are providing free textbooks and even do not charge examination fees,” he said and added, “Over 30,000 teachers have hired during the last 10 years purely on merit and 957 headmasters were recruited through IBA and 40,000 in-service teachers training has been made.”
The CM said that he has made a heavy investment in school education during the last five years. In 2014-15 Rs102 billion were utilised, in 201516 Rs125 billion utilised, in 2016-17 Rs110 billion spent and in 2017-18 Rs122 billion spent, he stated the statistics.
“I have worked out that the government spends around Rs2515 per child,” he said and added he is expecting best results of huge investment in the education sector but anyhow “we have to make more effective and focused measures to improve our school education”.
The chief minister directed education department start conducting viability assessment of 15214 low or no enrolment schools and 15000 medium enrolment schools with the objective to right size the total number of schools and to ensure that the financial resources are invested at the right place.
The chief minister approved high priority school infrastructure project under which infrastructure of 2632 schools would be completed by June 2019 in the first and in the second 1928 schools would be rehabilitated. He also issued directives for rehabilitation of 870 schools from M&R budget and the reaming 4685 schools would be rehabilitated by June 20022. He also issued clear directives for increasing access to Early Childhood Care and Education.
The chief minister also directed the Education Department to assess the locality, enrolment size, accessibility of shelterless schools so that appropriate action could be taken.