October 14, 2007	Sunday	Shawwal 1, 1428

LAHORE, Oct 13: A large number of government schools in Punjab have so far not been provided with free textbooks under the Punjab Education Sector Reforms Programme (PESRP), despite the fact that the academic session began from Sept 1.

Some schools in Lahore have not received different textbooks particularly of class-IX and students’ precious time is being wasted for none of their fault. These students are supposed to appear for their split class-IX annual examination in March-April this year.

Talking to Dawn, All Pakistan Teachers Federation chairman Azam Butt said it was pathetic that the Punjab government had not provided textbooks to all students despite the fact that it reduced the academic session to eight months.

He said the government also deprived its over 11 million students of textbooks during summer vacation as it decided to provide them the same at the start of the new academic session on Sept 1.

Mr Butt said it had also been reported that different schools were provided with books over and above their requirements. He said monitoring teams had reported on the mismanagement in this regard but the problem was not fixed even in the first week of October.

When contacted, PESRP Monitoring and Implementation Unit (PMIU) deputy director Ahad Cheema said the supply of textbooks at school level was the responsibility of the respective district education authorities.

He said the PMIU had supplied textbooks according to demand at tehsil level all over Punjab. From there, he said, it was the responsibility of the district education authorities to distribute textbooks at school level and meet their demands.

Mr Cheema said the monitoring unit had also received reports that textbooks were in short supply in a large number of schools, while other institutions got the same more than their demand.

He said the PMIU was now conducting an exercise and in a sense spoon-feeding the district education authorities to lift spare textbooks from certain schools and provide the same in others. He hoped that the issue would be resolved soon after Eidul Fitr.

When contacted, executive district officer (education) Zahid Husain said only textbooks for district governments’ English medium schools were in short supply.

He said earlier the Punjab government was not providing free textbooks to the City District Government Lahore English medium primary schools and only this year it agreed to give free books to CDGL school students as well.

With regard to other government schools, Mr Husain said textbooks were being provided to students immediately after their enrolment. He said the CDGL had organised an enrolment campaign from Sept 1 to 30 and managed to admit some 30,000 children to schools.

He said the education department officials had also visited slums to persuade parents to send their children to schools.

At present, he claimed, only 0.5 per cent students in schools were without textbooks.

“The process of providing free textbooks to all students in government schools will be completed by the end of this month,” he added.