ISLAMABAD, May 12: The education ministry has asked the finance department to allocate Rs9.5 billion in the forthcoming federal budget for the year 2002-03, an official source said.

Out of this amount, Rs5 billion are meant for Education Sector Reforms (ESR).

Last year, the government had sanctioned Rs2.5 billion out of which Rs2 billion were a supplementary grant for ESR, whereas the amount the education department got in the fiscal year 2000-01 was Rs1.2 billion.

The source, however, said that though the ministry was trying to obtain as much amount as possible, it was not necessary that the ministry would get the amount it was asking for.

Last year, Education Minister Zubaida Jalal had asked for an additional financial assistance of Rs6 billion for the year 2001- 2002 in addition to the overall budgetary allocations. But, the ministry was provided only Rs2.5 billion.

This year, the education ministry has been involved in examining and preparing budgetary grants of different autonomous and semi-autonomous bodies working under it. Presentation to be made before the quarters concerned for the release of the required funds is also being finalized.

Recently, Ms Jalal, talking to Dawn, had expressed the hope that the government, despite constraints, might grant an additional financial assistance of Rs5 billion in the federal budget for the fiscal year 2002-03 to carry out schemes under the ESR.

A report entitled, “Literacy Trends in Pakistan”, prepared by the Unesco in March, has mentioned that the allocations for education in Pakistan have always been very low with 2.3 per cent of the GNP being the highest figure in the 9th five-year plan (1998-2003).

The allocations for education in terms of percentage in GNP, have been declining continuously for the last many years, i.e 2.34 per cent in 1997-98, 2.2 per cent in 1998-99 and 2.14 per cent in 1999-2000.

However, the draft report has noted that the 9th plan has the provision of an additional 0.35 per cent increase in the allocation for education every year, so that by the end of the plan period (2002-2003) it will reach the level of four per cent of the GNP, which was the minimum requirement as per Unesco recommendations.

The source, while elaborating the objectives of the ESR, said it included improvement in literacy rate, universalization of primary education, improvement in the quality of education through better teachers, reformed curriculum and efficient examination system.

Recently, the federal government had distributed Rs492 million among the provinces to implement the third stream by introducing technical and vocational education parallel to science and arts at the secondary level from the next academic session.

The amount of Rs492 million has been distributed among 34 districts of the Punjab, 16 of Sindh, 22 of Balochistan and 24 of the NWFP.