May 19, 2006	Friday	Rabi-us-Sani 20, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, May 18: The Ministry of Education has decided to engage army engineering corps in the Rs100 billion President Educator Sector Reforms (ESR) programme for provision of missing facilities at the educational institutions, Dawn has learnt.

The programme has not been successful so far due to delay in release of insufficient funds by the Finance Division, provincial incapacity to implement reforms and lack of coordination between the federal and provincial governments. The programme had been launched in 2002.

The basic idea behind the programme was to put a systematic attention to different areas of education such as rehabilitation of physical facilities; support to multiple delivery systems such as formal and non-formal private sector, mainstreaming of madaris, literacy; teacher training; assessment and examination reforms; professional development of field managers; linking education to skills; research and research incentives; effective decentralisation of services and institutional strengthening.

Construction of various facilities such as labs, classrooms, boundary walls, washrooms, playgrounds and libraries at schools and colleges is an important component of the programme, said an official of the ministry.

The Public Works Department (PWD) and Communication and Works (C&W) are responsible for construction and maintenance of government buildings and these departments have over the years lost their credibility, the official said.

Whenever, there is mismanagement of such a project, a blame game starts between the contractors and these departments and at the end no one is held responsible for corruption.

Majority of the buildings, specially of educational institutions, which had collapsed in the October 8 quake in AJK and NWFP, were state-owned and it was largely believed that poor construction had caused their demolition.

The Army Engineering Corps will mainly be responsible for construction related activities of the educational institutions. “We need ‘A’ class construction,” the official said.

The provinces have been asked to send their demands to the federal education ministry, which has already set up a project management unit to coordinate efforts in this regard.

The management unit will send these demands to the corps headquarters of the regions concerned, which will undertake construction activities through engineering battalions. The basic idea behind involving army is to improve the existing construction standards of schools and colleges. When official spokesperson for the ministry, Mubashar Hassan, was contacted, he said a proposal in this regard was under consideration.

Federal Minister for Education, Lt Gen (retired) Javed Ashraf Qazi has speeded up the ESR programme and is sparing no effort to provide educational facilities in the far-flung areas of the country.