World Bank President James D Wolfensohn has approved extension of Chief Minister's Education Sector Reform Programme (ESRF) for the next 10 years, for which the Bank would provide $100 million every year in addition to $200 million already released for the programme, keeping in view its effectiveness. Provincial Minister for Education, Imran Masood said this while addressing a prize distribution ceremony of a school here on Wednesday.
Masood said that in a recent meeting with the representatives of Punjab government including minister and secretaries, Wolfensohn had highly commended provincial government's social development programme (Vision-2020) and termed it practical steps towards eradication of poverty and development of infrastructure in the province.
The World Bank has also expressed satisfaction over the pace of implementation of ESRP and considered it a result-oriented scheme for the uplift of education sector, he said. Highlighting the steps taken under ESRP, Masood said 8.8 million students from class one to five in government schools were delivered 12.2 million free textbooks at a total cost of Rs 494 million. In the next financial year, programme of free distribution of books will be extended to classes six to eight at a cost of Rs 600 million, he added.
With a view to checking dropouts of female students, a stipend scheme at the rate of Rs 200 per month has been introduced in 15 low literacy districts and an amount of Rs 350 million was allocated for the distribution of stipend. Expenditure to be incurred till end June would be Rs 334 million. The target population of such girls in the 15 low literacy district was 200,000. Punjab Education Foundation has been restructured with reduced bureaucratic control and Rs 100 million have been allocated, he said.
The net effect of the Education Reforms Programme has resulted in an increase of 900,000 students in enrolment at primary level. Acknowledging the services of private schools, he said that the government believes in public private partnership for the promotion of education.
The Adviser to Chief Minister, Akhtar Rasool, Principal of School M. Shahid Noor and Muhammad Ali Butt also spoke on the occasion.
Comments
Comments are closed.