October 23, 2001	Tuesday	Shaba'an 5, 1422

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QUETTA, Oct 22: About 11,000 religious seminaries (Madaris) have agreed to get themselves registered with the government and receive official assistance, Federal Education Minister Zubeda Jalal said at a press conference at the Quetta Press Club on Monday.

She said the government would provide the Madaris with text books on three subjects —Urdu, mathematics and science — besides providing computers to them. Training, she added, would given to teachers in selected subjects.

The minister stated that official assistance was being given to 100 seminaries and 100 more Madressahs would be added to that list very soon.

She declared that another landmark task being taken up by the government was to provide meals to 10,000 schools being selected in those districts, where the level of poverty was highest. She said mothers of children, particularly in girls schools, were being engaged to cook meals in the schools.

“No”, was her reply when asked whether the government was considering imparting primary education in mother tongue. “Urdu is the national language, which helps the students of all parts of the country to communicate with each other. By imparting primary education in mother tongue, the students will be confined to their respective areas and will be at disadvantage with others.”

The minister said the Balochistan government was expected to promulgate an ordinance for compulsory education of children in line with other provinces of the country.

“We have taken a realistic approach in this regard and has not put in any punitive clause”, she said, while pointing out that there were many areas in the country without any schools.

She stated that the US labour department was offering five million dollars to help the government to eliminate child labour from the country. She said programmes had been drawn up to provide education to children working in Sialkot and Gujrat and that programmes had been extended to Faisalabad and Qasur.

The minister lauded foreign donors for extending assistance to help cope with the influx of Afghan refugees into the country. “These financial assistance programmes are essentially in social sectors. At present, there are three million Afghan refugees in the country. Of them, 1.7 million are in the camps and remaining are spread in all parts of the country.”

She said that as Balochistan and the NWFP shared most of the burden of the refugees, the foreign assistance would be given to the two provinces to meet educational requirements of Afghan children.

The minister unfolded a three-year sectoral performance action plan being launched from the current year, saying that the plan aimed at improving the quality of education at all levels of education.

According to the minister, three components of this action plan are (i) revision of curriculum (ii) examination reforms and (iii) training of teachers.

She said technical subjects were being introduced for IX and X classes, and added that it was being done after observing large numbers of dropouts at the secondary level. “With present curriculum, a matriculate does not have any opportunity to compete for any job.”