ISLAMABAD, Dec 14: Opposition senators are learnt to have questioned the government’s decision to engage the army to repair and build new schools in the country.

Senators from the opposition benches have submitted an adjournment motion in the senate secretariat seeking discussion on the reported acquiring of army engineers to undertake reconstruction and repair of government-run schools.

“This is an important national issue which should be discussed on the floor of the senate adjourning the business of the house,” the adjournment motion says. The motion was signed by members of the senate from the combined opposition under rule 74 of the rules of procedure and conduct of business in the senate, 1988.Those who signed the motion included the leader of the opposition in the senate, Mian Raza Rabbani (People’s Party Parliamentarians), Dr Babar Awan (PPP), Dr Abdul Malik (Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal), M. Enver Baig (PPP), Prof Khurshid Ahmad (MMA) and Sadia Abbasi (Pakistan Muslim League-N).

According to press reports, the education minister engaged the army for the Rs100 billion President Education Sector Reforms project to build lacking infrastructural facilities of schools.

The motion is based on a statement attributed to Federal Education Minister Javed Ashraf Qazi who was quoted as saying: “For the effective utilisation of funs and timely completion of task, the ministry has decided to engage army engineers to provide missing facilities at school level in the entire country”.

“It is a novel policy and interference in the civil administration of the ministry of education proving that civilian government institutions are incompetent and inefficient to handle the issue,” the adjournment motion says.

This is an effort to prove that only military organisations or administration can handle the education system besides other administrative matters of the country, it adds.

It also shows that even construction of various facilities like laboratories, classrooms, boundary walls, washrooms, playgrounds and libraries can only be built by the military administration and civil departments are impotent, inefficient and useless to maintain it properly, the motion says.