PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa elementary and secondary education department has decided to double the parent-teacher council (PTC) funds for government schools in the province to accelerate infrastructural improvement and security arrangements.

The development comes in light of the Taliban attack on the Army Public School Peshawar, which left over 140 people, mostly students, dead on December 16, 2014.

“If the government agrees with the education department, PTCs will be empowered to use up to Rs2 million in a government school,” a senior relevant official told Dawn.

He said currently, a PTC could use Rs1 million at maximum.

The PTC is a school-based body consisting of parents of the enrolled students, local influential residents and administration of the school.

It executes civil works like construction of additional classrooms, boundary wall, lavatory, electrification, purchase of furniture, classroom consumables, and laboratory equipment.

PTCs to use up to Rs2m in each public sector school after govt’s consent

However, after the APS was attacked, walls were built around 5,000 government schools, which didn’t have brick boundary.

It was also decided to increase the height of the boundary walls of almost all government schools, fix barbed wire on walls and place cemented blocks in front of schools through the PTC.

The relevant officials said since the provision of missing facilities to schools and putting in place strict security checks were to cost more than Rs1 million, the education department decided to double the PTC funds.

They said the education department had allocated Rs8 billion for the security of schools and providing missing facilities under different schemes to be executed through PTCs across the province.

When contacted, elementary and secondary education minister Atif Khan confirmed that the PTC funds would be doubled in the best interest of students.

He said a summary for the purpose had been prepared and that it would be tabled in the upcoming meeting of the provincial cabinet.

The minister expressed the hope that the summary would be approved by the cabinet.

He said the department would also begin a campaign by placing advertisements in newspapers asking teachers, PTC members and people to check whether the PTC funds had received by the respective schools.

The officials said the performance of PTCs to ensure provision of missing facilities was encouraging as they had done a lot of work with the meagre funds and that, too, ahead of the stipulated time.

They said initially, the department with the support of donors increased the PTC funds from Rs0.25 million to Rs1 million for speedy provision of missing facilities at schools under a 2011 pilot project executed in Buner and Dera Ismail Khan.

“Prior to 2011, all missing facilities were provided in government schools through the communication and works department. However, slow pace of work and corruption forced the government to explore new options,” an official said.

He said after the successful execution of the pilot project, the government’s confidence in PTCs increased and therefore, it launched the project in 10 other districts, including Peshawar, Mardan, Swabi, Charsadda, Batagram, Swat, Mansehra and Buner, in 2012 after allocating Rs1.023 billion.

The official added that the project was later extended to other parts of the province.

Published in Dawn, April 12th, 2015

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