Ministry of Information Technology in collaboration with provincial and AJK governments would set up computer laboratories in 1,096 educational institutions, said Minister for Information Technology, Awais Ahmed Khan Leghari here on Monday.
"As many as 1,098 schools and colleges across the country will have these labs that would be ready by March next year, for the next academic session," the minister said addressing a meeting of ministerial review of the project "IT/computer science teachers, lab in-charges and computer labs project matching programme with the provinces."
The meeting was attended by Education Minister Lieutenant General (R) Javed Ashraf Qazi, AJK Education Minister Chaudhry Muhammad Aziz, Sindh Education Minister Dr Hameeda Khoro, Federal Secretary IT Khalid Saeed, provincial education secretaries and officials from the ministry of information technology.
The minister said, tendering process and the purchase of equipment must be completed by the end of this year to make these labs functional for next academic session in March. The project was approved by Ecnec on January 7, for Rs 1641.130 million.
Under the project, 1,098 IT teachers, lab in-charges and computer labs are being provided to government high schools, higher secondary schools and inter colleges in all provinces, including AJK, FATA, FANA and ICT for imparting quality IT education at class IX to XII levels.
The project would cover about 11 percent of the total number of schools and inter colleges in the public sector.
Leghari directed the Pakistan Computer Bureau and provincial bodies tasked with the implementation of the project to recruit IT teachers from within the local councils or from the tehsil if the teacher with required qualification were not available, to promote employment at the grassroot level.
The number of teachers to be recruited is 515 in Punjab, 206 in Sindh, 169 in NWFP, 95 in Balochistan, 26 each in AJK, FATA, FANA and 35 in Islamabad Capital Territory.
The meeting was told that advertisement for hiring of teachers and lab in-charges in 129 schools had already been placed in newspapers while tendering process for 129 labs had also been completed.
Under the project, teachers to be appointed would he required to possess MSc (Computer Science) or BCS (4 years after F.Sc/A Level) or equivalent. They would be employed on contract basis in BPS-17 for three years while the lab in-charges would be recruited in BPS-7. After three years, the provinces would take over the project.