KARACHI, Oct 30: The Sindh Education and Literacy Minister, Dr Hamida Khuhro, on Saturday welcomed an offer by senior corporate executives, educationists and government officials for adopting public schools to enhance the quality of education being offered there.
Speaking at a discussion on "Improving public-sector schools in Sindh", she assured them for formulating a comprehensive policy in this regard, saying that without public-private sector partnership, shortcomings in the educational system could not be overpowered.
Senior bureaucrat and the Director General, Sindh Kutchi Abadis Authority, Tasleem Ahmed Siddiqui, had arranged the discussion at his office, which was attended by educationists, Sindh secretary education, Special Secretary Sohail Akbar Shah, industrialists and philanthropists.
Appreciating offers by philanthropists and industrialists regarding the adoption of public schools, Dr Hamida said that the private sector was playing an important role in promoting education in urban Sindh including in Karachi; however, rural Sindh was suffering owing to the absence of private educational institutions.
"Several initiatives are under way including the revival of curricula by making it more attractive, student friendly and result-oriented," she said, adding that she was tying hard to establish a proper check-and-balance system and promote merit and talent at all levels to give boost to education.
Dr Hamida further assured that proposals regarding the start of academic session from August instead of April and school week from Monday to Friday would be given due consideration.
The education department had already taken several revolutionary steps including a ban on corporal punishment and meeting of teachers associations during school timings to ensure strict discipline, she added.
She stressed giving teachers training more attention, saying that all-out efforts were being made to impart effective and quality training to teaching staff.
Sindh Secretary Education Nadir Ali Markhiani in his presentation pointed out the problems facing the Sindh education department, including the dropout ratio of children from schools after primary education.
According to him, out of the six million school-going children in the five to nine age group, over 50 per cent were out of schools or not getting any kind of education.
He appealed to philanthropists to support the education department in enhancing educational opportunities in rural Sindh.
Earlier, educationist Syed Sami Mustafa in his paper discussed issues like unsound curricula objectives, substandard textbooks, inefficient school management, child unfriendly teaching methods and poor credibility of exam boards.
According to him, political interference, poor lesson planning and lack of effective check and balance over teachers by their institutional heads were causes of teachers' absence and the subsequent decline of education in the province.
He also offered the services of his group for adoption and running of more public schools, and suggested the establishment of Sindh Committee for Education Reform (SCER) with an aim to promote public-private partnership.
Among others, Jameel Hussain, Air Commodore (Retd) Munawwar Siddiqui Almas Bana, Farukh Shaikh, Mujib-ur-Rahman, Akbarali sharif, and Zohair Ashir were also present. - PPI
