Education sector: Rs 134.32 billion envisaged for non-development expenditures

Sindh government has proposed allocation of Rs 134.32 billions for non-development expenditures of education sector in the provincial budget for fiscal year 2014-15, while Rs 10.7 billions have been allocated in Sindh's Annual Development Programme (ADP) for education sector.
In his budget speech, Chief Minister Sindh Syed Qaim Ali Shah said that government had proposed allocation of Rs 13.6 billion for Sindh Education Reform Programme. He said the non-salary expenditure on education would witness a significant hike of 25pc over outgoing years' budget. The non-salary budget will now comprise 24.5pc of the total current revenue budget for education as compared to 21pc in the outgoing year.
For the first time, he said, Sindh government is making school specific allocation in the budgets for 43,000 schools in Sindh in order to ensure that each school gets its earmarked budget and the head of the school has an oversight over expenditures.
"Another major reform being undertaken is to have separate cadres of managers and teachers. Both these reforms will help in resolving governance-related issues of education," he added. He said key targets of Sindh Education Reform Programme (SERP) are to raise school participation by improving governance, accountability, strengthening of administrative systems, measuring student achievements and promoting public private partnerships initiatives.
The allocation for SERP-related activities has been kept at Rs 13.6 billion, out of which 1500 million will be spent on stipends for girl students, Rs 1540 million on provision of free textbooks to students, Rs 4000 million on improving infrastructure for schools and Rs 1750 million will be transferred to School Management Committees for community identified school improvement investments.
For the first time in provincial budget, Qaim Ali Shah said provincial government has proposed allocation of Rs 5.0 billion for the Universities functioning in Sindh. "These universities are under severe financial stress as their grants from HEC are being squeezed. We had to come to their rescue by providing them financial assistance of Rs 1058 million during the outgoing financial year, most of which was outside budget," he informed.
He said Sindh government has also proposed a substantial allocation of Rs 3.85 billion for Sindh Technical & Vocational Training Authority (STEVTA}. Through this allocation, STEVTA will complete construction work on 32 new institutions, introduce 70 market driven courses, improve infrastructure of 50 institutions and will provide new equipment to existing and new institutions. Special training programmes for marginalized and vulnerable groups will also be introduced. This year, STEVTA will enroll 5000 more trainees, to increase its enrolment capacity to a total number of 45,000 trainees.