LAHORE: Provincial Minister for School Education Murad Raas has said that education must be top priority and should not be politicized in order to achieve the desired goals. In this regard, Punjab government has taken revolutionary measures.
He was speaking at a meeting at the Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industry. LCCI President Kashif Anwar presented the address of welcome while Executive Committee Members were also present.
“We are bringing changes in the province’s school education sector that aim at setting new standards and change the department’s affairs for good,” he said.
The provincial minister said that the Private Schools Act was not upgraded since 1984. The Punjab government took this initiative while talking the representatives of private schools into confidence. He said that the NGOs are exaggerating the data of out-of-school children for personal interest.
Murad Raas said that there was around Rs2 to 2.5 billion corruptions in School Education Department in terms of transfers of teachers, postings, leaves, ACRs, promotion and retirement dues but we have broken that system. He said that an APP has been introduced and now the teacher can apply for everything with comfort from their smart phones. He said that the dues on retirement will directly go into the account of the teacher. “When a teacher will be free of all of these hassles, he will be able to provide quality education to the students”, the Minister said.
He said that in education sector we are far behind of the world. Education sector needs at least 10 years concentrated efforts. We have never stopped the education programme of the previous government but removed the lacunas. He added that there are at least two teachers for 40 students in Punjab. He said that 2.5 lakh children are benefiting from the card given by the KP government but we have introduced educational facilities for 4 million children.
He said that two thousand new classrooms have been built in the schools of Punjab. Now the teachers are getting online training and our team is monitoring it regularly.
LCCI President, Kashif Anwar said that with increasing inflation and cost of living, children often have to choose between going to school and providing additional income for their households. Socio-economic factors contribute to a major chunk of out of school children in Punjab (5 million+ as per Punjab Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey 2021). More than 20 million children in Pakistan are out of school.
He said that the public schooling sector in Pakistan needs to be transformed according to the needs of the changing times so that demand driven skills can be imparted in our school children. In this regard, LCCI recommends that Technical and Vocational training streams should be initiated in our school education curriculum.
The LCCI President said that as per studies published by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), there is an immense demand of entry-level skilled labour, especially in our Textile, Automobile and Tele communications Industries.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022