25 October 2004	Monday	10 Ramazan 1425

ISLAMABAD, Oct 24: The Ministry for Education has been re- structured and many of its wings abolished in a bid to achieve set targets.

A decision in this regard was taken by Minister for Education Lt-Gen (retired) Javed Ashraf Qazi here on Sunday during a meeting, said an official announcement.

He termed the old setup and distribution of duties to various sections of the ministry 'hotch-potch and duplication of work' which was tantamount to wastage of national resources and manpower.

According to the new structure, Education for All (EFA) wing, advanced education wing and science and technical education wing have been abolished.

The new wings will include projects wings, having EFA project, non-formal basic education projects, science education project, technical education project, madressahs project, education sector reforms project, adult literacy project, functional literacy project, early childhood project, girls primary education project, cadet colleges project and the Federal Directorate of Education projects.

All the projects will be headed by respective project directors and supervised by a joint education adviser who will submit a monthly report to the education minister about the achievements of the projects.

Any project failing to achieve the desired goals will not be allowed to function.

Another wing constituted under the new setup by abolishing the advance education wing is the training wing. This wing will be responsible for processing scholarships, looking into the affairs of centres of excellence, National Institute of Science and Technical Education, Federal College of Education and providing state-of-the-art teachers training.

The wing will also be responsible for imparting training to students and teachers in computers, management and administration of educational institutions.

The curriculum wing has also been restructured. Due to heavy load of misplaced projects, the madressahs projects, Federal College of Education, Inter Board Committee of Chairmen and the National Education Assessment System have been withdrawn from the purview of the curriculum wing.

The Pakistan Academy of Letters, Technical and Vocational Education and the National Book Foundation have been withdrawn from the science and advance education wings and given in the control of curriculum wing.

The planning and development wing has been entrusted with the task of looking after the affairs of the Academy of Educational Planning and Management for collection of educational data. It will also be responsible for devising education policy, planning the implementation strategy for the policy and project formulation and preparation of PC-Is. It will work for capacity-building of provincial and district officers and coordinate with international donors.

To monitor and evaluate the reports and progress of different projects which will be submitted to the education ministry by different wings and projects, a monitoring and evaluation cell has also been established in the ministry for the purpose after the approval of the prime minister.

The cell will verify the submitted reports and progress and will account its recommendations accordingly.

The cell will check the spending of national and international grants by NGOs working in the education sector to facilitate the international donor community.

The administration wing of the ministry has been directed to process promotion cases of the staff which have been pending since long.