May 10, 2008	Saturday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 4, 1429

ISLAMABAD, May 9: About 6,000 union councils in the country lack high schools for both boys and girls, and 70 per cent of the high schools are without science laboratories and 95 per cent are without computer laboratories.

This was stated by Federal Minister for Education Ahsan Iqbal while talking to media persons after the 13th inter-provincial education ministers’ conference here Friday.

The conference discussed the current status of education in the country and was attended by the four provincial education ministers, besides education minister for AJK and representatives from Fata.

“In the military led-government, expenditure on higher education was increased by 10 per cent, however, primary education was ignored altogether that has created a big imbalance in the education sector,” Mr Ahsan said.

He said there was an urgent need to recreate the balance in the entire value chain of education and the government was focusing on the pre-school learning, primary, middle, high school and college education, in addition to the university education.

In the phase-I, in every union council two high schools for both boys and girls would be established, besides providing missing facilities to already established schools across the country, the minister said.

Moreover, science and computer laboratories will also be set up in every high school so that students could have access to modern knowledge, he added.

A project worth Rs7.6 billion for providing missing facilities to public schools has been planed and work on it will be started from July this year by the provincial governments.

Talking about the issue of the timing of academic session, he said the previous time table would be restored and that next year

it would be started from March-April as the existing practice, he added, was irking all the stakeholders including students, parents and teachers.

Answering a question about student unions, he said an orientation workshop for students of degree colleges and universities would be held next week to sensitise the students about the unions.

A code of conduct will also be developed for the representatives of student unions to prevent violence and anti- social activities within the educational institutions, the minister said.