ISLAMABAD, Nov 13: The United Kingdom’s Department for Finance and International Development, (DFID) will finance a study to help improve education system and build monitoring and policy planning capabilities.

The understanding of cooperation was reached at a meeting held at the education ministry on Tuesday.

Education Minister Zobaida Jalal presided over the meeting while DFID education adviser Dr Hasel Bines led the British side.

A source told Dawn that the DFID representative was interested in assisting the education sector, specially in building monitoring capacity, public-private partnership, quality enhancement and devolution in education, including district management and community participation in education.

The main focus of the project will be in the Punjab and NWFP in the form of technical cooperation and budget support.

Under education sector reforms, the government intends to develop public-private sectors partnership and with the NGOs by offering incentives to the private sector that include provision of land either free of cost or at concessional rates in rural areas.

Incentives also include exemption of 50 per cent income tax for faculty, management and support staff.

The reforms intend to address governance and management issues through programmes for decentralization of education at the district level, redefining the role of federal, provincial, district and local level education structures for people-centred, right-based and service-oriented systems. And to ensure community participation through effective local school board programmes.

The DFID and the education ministry will jointly organize policy seminars in different areas including statistics, public-private partnerships, financial procedures and fiscal issues.

The meeting worked out modalities of collaboration between DFID, the federal education ministry and identified joint policy concerns.

The DFID will also facilitate the ministry in the EMIS study, national education foundation restructuring, establishing national network on community participation in education and creating a website for the ministry.

They also intend to initiate support programmes for Afghan refugee children.

During the meeting the education minister proposed that a joint conference should be held to work out the actual education needs of Afghan refugee children and the ways and means to help them. Educated people from Afghanistan and international donor agencies will be invited to the conference.