PESHAWAR: Modern Madaris to be opened, says governor
Bureau Report
PESHAWAR, Oct 23: NWFP Governor Lt-Gen Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah has said that it is the policy of the government to allow everyone access to the value-added education. Primary education is the inborn right of the children and we want to make it attractive so as to raise literacy rate as quickly as possible.
He was addressing a meeting held at the Governor House here on Tuesday with the President Task Force on Human Development.
The governor was optimistic that the President Task Force would supplement the provincial government’s efforts in overcoming the deficiencies and bottlenecks in the education sector.
He said that the provincial government was all out to raise the quality of education.
The steps initiated by the government have started yielding the desired results. The governor said lack of resources was the main problem for “our cash-starved province.” Despite all this it was spending one-fourth of its total resources on the promotion of this sector.
The government has set primary education, with particular reference to raising female literacy ratio, as one of the key targets.
He regretted that almost seven lakh children had no access to primary education.
The government is moving in two directions to achieve the targets in the education sector. It has established primary education as a separate department. Simultaneously, it is working on the public-private sector partnership to increase the education facilities, the governor said.
He said that the government’s buildings housing public schools would be used for the new arrangement.
He said: “We are also in the process of introducing co-education at primary level in some parts of the province.
The new mechanism would not put any extra burden on the provincial exchequer but the existing infrastructure would be used for reining in the drop-outs.
He said teacher recruitment criteria would be relaxed in areas where the government could not find sufficiently qualified female teachers. This would be “areas-specific.”
A mechanism has been evolved under which the buildings of public sector would be offered to the private sector for starting night classes.
The provincial auqaf department has been tasked to set up modern Deeni Madaris, which besides offering religious education, “should also be the centres of worldly education.” Likewise, the industry department would establish technical institutions for producing skilled manpower.
He said there would be no permanent recruitment of teachers. All appointments would be made under contractual arrangement. A mechanism is also being evolved to engage the private sector in the professional education also.
Within a short span of one year, the NWFP government has established eight universities — four each in the public and private sector, he said, adding the government was also directly negotiating with the donor agencies to give education a shot in the arm. It would not take such loans, which could not be paid back, he maintained.
The public sector would now perform three functions: policy formulation, facilitation, and regulation of private sector institutions.
A new monitoring mechanism has been put in place under which the educational institutions would be run by certain monitoring committees comprising teachers, parents and elected representatives. He said the government had already introduced the concept of reward and punishment in the education sector.
Talking about the health sector, he said the equipment and staff of the BHUs would be shifted to the district headquarters hospitals to ensure an efficient health delivery system at district level.
