KARACHI: Sindh set to take back SMI, DCET: Centre gives green signal
By Mukhtar Alam
KARACHI, Jan 10: After getting a fresh go ahead from Islamabad, the Sindh government has started preparing to get back control of the Sindh Madressatul Islam and Dawood College of Engineering and Technology from the federal government, provincial officials said on Wednesday.
The two federal institutions of great importance had been pulled out the Sindh government’s jurisdiction in the 1970s.
A senior official of the Sindh Education Department said that the chief minister too had expressed his agreement on the restoration of the two educational institutions to Sindh, and a summary in this regard would soon be moved to him for his formal perusal and approval.
Once the transfer proposal and budgetary allocations are approved by the chief minister, further modalities for the change of command will be finalised by stakeholders, according to the official.
A communication from the provincial education manager (colleges) office said that Federal Education Minister Javed Ashraf Qazi had agreed in principle to transfer the administrative control of the SMI and the DCET to the Sindh Education Department.
“In a letter addressed to Dr Hamida Khuhro, Sindh Minister for Education and Literacy, the federal minister for education said that he would like to reiterate that the Ministry of Education had agreed in principle to the transfer the two institutions in question to the Sindh Education Department”, added the communication.
Education circles, meanwhile, described the development as a surprise, recalling that it was only a few weeks back, i.e. in the last week of November 2006, that a senior official of the federal ministry of education had stated that the Centre wanted to retain the control of the SMI and to see the institution as a well-preserved heritage and national level education institution of par excellence.
Javed Qazi, in his letter, has suggested to the Sindh education minister that the modalities regarding the transfer of the two institutions could be worked out by the concerned officials of his ministry and the Sindh government, which might include commitment of the provincial government to meet the recurring expenditure and development cost of both the institutions.
The DCET is considered as a national mark of coherence among provinces as it offers admissions to all eligible students irrespective of their place of birth and domicile. “In the case of DCET, the federal minister has suggested continuation of the present allocation/quota of admission seats,” said the communication. Dr Mohammad Ali Shaikh, Education Manager (Colleges), Sindh, said that the federal government’s decision was in line with the policy of giving schools under the control of the concerned city and district governments and colleges under the concerned provincial government.
Talking about the existing financial obligations of the federal government, Dr Shaikh said that the DCET and SMI budgets had an outlay of around Rs105 million and provincial government was able to sustain that as it was already allocating about Rs41 billion to the education sector.
