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| October 28, 2005 | Friday | Ramzan 23, 1426 |
School building job given to army
ISLAMABAD, Oct 27: The government has decided to involve army in construction of school buildings in all the four provinces instead of assigning the task to the Pakistan Public Works Department (PWD).
This was disclosed by federal Minister for Education Lt-Gen (rtd) Javed Ashraf Qazi at a press conference here on Thursday.
Giving details of decisions taken at a high-level meeting presided over by President General Pervez Musharraf, he said that the respective Corps Headquarters would get funds for the purpose while construction would be carried out by engineers of the concerned army units.
“We do not want to waste time in slow process of Pak the PWD,” he said.
He pointed out that only in Punjab 22,000 schools were without buildings. An additional secretary of the federal government would monitor the whole process of construction, he added.
Qazi said it was also decided to hold a countrywide education census to ascertain literacy rate and collect other education-related data. The process of national education census will commence on November 10 and conclude in May next year, he added.
He said that on the basis of the data, the government would set its priorities in the education sector and would be in a position to give accurate figures to international donors.
At present, donors rely on the figures of 1998 census which, according to the government, no longer depict true picture after seven years, he said, adding that according to the 1998 census, literacy rate is 44 per cent while, according to government’s estimates, it now stands at 53 per cent.
“We will involve district education officers in the whole process who will provide us data relating to number of schools and students in their respective districts,” the minister said.
He said that education data would be compiled in the national management information system which would be made operational in June next year.
All the schools and district education officers would be linked to each other through this system, he said, adding that the meeting also decided to increase budgetary allocation for the education sector from existing 2.7 per cent (Rs.132 billion) to 4 per cent (Rs160 billion ) of GDP during the next two financial years.
He said the meeting decided to take government colleges out of the control of district governments and place them under provincial governments. The decision, he said, was taken in view of deteriorating standard of education in government colleges.
He said that an amendment would be made in the Local Government Ordinances of the four provinces according to which only schools up to the secondary level would remain under the district governments.
Citing an example, the minister said that Government Zamindara College Gujrat produced zero per cent result in the last academic year.
He said that the meeting also decided to review curriculum of schools and it was decided that the books of Islamiyat would not contain any material that is objectionable for any sect, he said.
The subjects like Pakistan Studies and History would be taught in Urdu while science subjects would have books in English language in all the Urdu and English Medium schools.
He said that there would be composite board-examination of 9th and 10th class from the year 2007 while the number of examination boards would also be reduced to bring about uniformity in the examination system.
He said that an inter-ministerial meeting to be held in November would consider composite examination for FA/ FSc and starting academic from August every year. He said examinations would be held in May while classes would start in August.
Mr Qazi said the meeting also decided to promulgate an ordinance to control and monitor private schools on the pattern of madressahs.
Regarding losses of educational institutions in the earthquake, he said as part of temporary arrangements, the federal government had provided 300 tents to the Azad Kashmir government out of its demand of 500 tents for setting up tent-schools.
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