Next five years: provinces asked to work out projections for schoolgoing children

Ministry of Planning Development and Reforms has reportedly asked every province to prepare projections for schoolgoing children for next five years and for 2025 along with required resources to have a boys and girls school at every Union Council.
Sources said that Minister for Planning Ahsan Iqal suggested this to the provinces during an inter-provincial education ministers' conference, which was presided over by him. A copy of minutes of the conference revealed "Although Pakistan falls in the category of middle income group of countries but its educational indicators fall amongst the least developed countries (LDC) of the world".
The minister stated that developed countries have built up their foundation on strong quality education while Pakistan measures its level of success in education on achievements in literacy and net enrolment rate. He identified real problem that is required to be resolved was that whether students are getting innovative and interactive education.
The Minister stated that with the passage of 18th Constitutional Amendment a new model of partnership have emerged between the provinces and the federal government which necessitate a great need of meaningful co-ordination at all levels. He stated that this is very important for Pakistan to develop minimum level of standards to make educational system uniform.
Ahsan Iqbal stated that the concept of digital education should be adopted and computer labs should be established in all elementary and secondary schools all over the country. He further invited the attention of the participants towards his letter addressed to all the Chief Ministers of the Provinces regarding improvement of education and emphasised the need to consider proposals contained therein for future educational planning.
Minister of State for Education Baligh-ur-Rehman stated education Ministry is trying to provide a platform at national level for co-ordination among the provinces and centre after 18th Constitutional Amendment.
The Minister for Education, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa stated that at international level federal government is held responsible for un-satisfactory performance regarding MDGs etc and 18th Constitutional Amendment cannot be revoked being a legal and constitutional matter. However, federal and provincial governments can formulate committees for consultation at national level and KPK government is fully conscious of its obligations and commitment regarding the education.
Balochistan government representative stated that provincial government is fully committed to implement National Education Policy 2009 as achievement of MDGs targets is directly related to the educational uplift of Balochistan.
The representative of education government maintained that for the sake of development of education all the federating units must sit down together and prepare a uniform strategy for the quantitative and qualitative improvement in education while representative of the Punjab government stated that their government agrees to the proposal of Notional Curriculum Commission at centre.
The minutes of the meeting also revealed that there are 27,371 schools without electricity, 10,000 schools are shelterless, 37,000 schools without toilets, 25,000 schools without drinking water and 19,000 schools without boundary wall. The number of out of school children in Sindh is 2.37 million.