A seminar on "Curbing Corruption in the Education Sector" was organised by Transparency International-Pakistan (TI-P) at a local hotel here on Saturday, October 22, 2011, and two major corruption issues, Ghost Schools and Illegal increases in Fee of more than allowed 5 percent in the private schools were taken as projects to immediately tackle.
Chief guest and former Secretary Education Mehtab Akbar Rashdi said that political interference was responsible for the plight of education sector. She said that situation can be changed only when education department officials would be made to send their children to government schools. She added that corruption couldn't be eliminated in a society which has forgotten human values.
TI-P Advisor Syed Adil Gilani said that education sector was one of those sectors where government had least control over corruption. "Unfortunately Pakistan is moving up on the ladder of most corrupt countries and immediate measures are needed to be taken in this regard," he underlined.
Director, Hamdard Institute of Education and Social Sciences (HIESS) Professor Dr Abdul Aziz in his speech said that teachers' training programme which had been running for so long had shown no outcomes as yet and situation was still as worst as it was in the past. Professor Dr Syed Arif Kamal of University of Karachi said that an Anti-corruption hotline should be established with proper mechanism to filter false accusation. "Chances of corruption are always there in any project with the involvement of money but those can be minimised. Dr Kamal also emphasised on need for reward for whistleblowers.-PR