KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Thursday directed the Sindh Education department to immediately take over 4,192 schools of non-formal education system, in line with the decision taken in the 42nd session of Council of Common Interest (CCI) that the provincial governments would take over National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) and Basic Education Community School (BECS) from June 30.

He said this while presiding over a meeting here at CM House, said a press release here.

The meeting was attended by Minister Education Saeed Ghani, Advisor Law Murtaza Wahab, Chief Secretary Mumtaz Shah, PSCM Sajid Jamal Abro, Secretary School Education Ahmed Bux Narejo, Secretary IPC Asif Ikram, Special Secretary Finance Bilal Memon, and others.

Saeed Ghani told the CM Sindh that there was a total of 4,192 centres and schools with 4,425 teachers and 236,755 enrolments, including 1,463 BECS centres with 1,463 teachers and 61,118 enrollment and 2,729 NCHD centres with 2,962 teachers and 175,637 students.

The CM Sindh was told that these schools were being run under a non-formal education system where teachers were teaching voluntarily against remuneration of Rs 8000 per month.

Murad Ali Shah directed to take over these 4,192 schools and centres and decided to enhance the salaries of teachers from Rs 8,000 to Rs 25,000.

The chief minister said that his government has already announced the minimum wage at Rs 25,000 per month, therefore, these volunteer teachers would be paid Rs25,000 each per month.

The finance department told the chief minister that enhancing the salaries of 4,425 teachers from Rs 8,000 to Rs 25,000 per month would cause a Rs 1.327 billion financial implication.

Syed Murad Ali Shah approved the amount and directed the department to move a summary for the purpose.

He directed the provincial Education department to take over the schools immediately and make the schools functional with the same teaching staff.

"After some time an opportunity may be provided to the teachers to appear in the test and those who qualified it would be inducted as regular staffers," he said.

The chief minister further directed the Education department to assess the requirement of these schools in terms of furniture, water, washrooms, electricity, and others and ensure their provision at the earliest.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021