Provincial Minister for Elementary and Secondary Education, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Mohammad Atif Khan has sternly directed the department for the demolition of the buildings of 300 dilapidated schools to start reconstruction work on them with immediate effect.
Similarly, he also directed the reconstruction of 120 earthquake affected schools, up-gradation of 100 Maktab (Mosque) schools into regular schools and acceleration of the pace of work on provision of permanent buildings for 100 schools established in rented buildings.
He issued these directives while presiding over a review meeting of Education Department here on Wednesday. Beside others, Secretary Education, Shehzad Bangash and Special Secretary Education, Qaiser Alam, other higher authorities also attended.
The meeting was briefed in detail regarding provision of furniture to public sector schools, sports facilities, Girls Cadet College Mardan, establishment of IT Labs, conditional grant, establishment of play areas in primary schools, construction of sports grounds, standardization of 400 schools project and Early Age Programming Project and took several crucial decisions in this regard.
During the meeting the authorities of elementary and secondary education told that so far a sum of Rs 4 billion has been released for provision of furniture to public sector schools for 1.2 million children.
Out of that amount Rs 3 billion have been spent in head during the current year while out of 10,000 primary schools play areas have been established in 7791 schools while an amount of Rs 350mn has already been released for establishment of the facility in the remaining schools and will complete during the current year.
The meeting was further told that 57 sports grounds will complete by the end of the current month while out of 72 schools 42 are ready under Standardization Project and they will be inaugurated shortly. Addressing the meeting, the Provincial Minister for Education said that as per announcement of the provincial government 15000 vacancies of teachers will be advertised as new rules and regulations till second week of next month (September) and directed recruitment on them without any delay to resolve the problem of the teachers' shortage in schools.
He further directed the acceleration of the pace of work on the project of the provision of sports' facilities through Boards of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE) and directed the concerned authorities for presentation of all details and implementation plan with immediate effect. The provincial minister also directed initiating immediate steps for the formation of Private Schools Regulatory Authority in the province.