ISLAMABAD, Sept 22: The government will soon set up regulatory bodies, both at the national as well as provincial levels, to oversee the activities of privately-managed schools and institutions of higher education.

“The private sector has always been a source of great help to the government in its efforts to promote basic education in the country,” Minister for Education Zobaida Jalal said, talking to reporters here on Monday.

The private sector had played a pivotal role in enhancing the literacy rate from 45 per cent in 1999 to 51.6 per cent in 2003. The minister expressed the hope that the literacy rate would be 60 per cent by the year 2005.

She said plots in the residential schemes on reserve prices would be provided to the private sector to facilitate its working. A rebate on income tax would also be enjoyed by the sector while schools running on a non-profit basis would be exempted from all kind of taxes.

She said the curriculums of private institutions should conform to the principles laid down in the federal supervision of curriculums, textbooks and the Maintenance of Standards of Education Act 1976.

She said the gross primary enrolment would be 76 per cent in 2003, the middle school enrolment 55 per cent while the secondary school enrolment would be 40 per cent. The higher education enrolment would be 5 per cent and the number of technical stream schools would be 1,100 by the year 2005.

Regarding public-private partnership, the minister said the total number of public-private-managed institutions would be 26,000 by the year 2005, which would be a record.

Ms Jalal said her vision was to achieve the Education For All (EFA) goals as committed by the country. The commitment had been made at the World Education Forum in Dakar in 2000. She said the government was attaching top priority to the EFA.

She said nearly 80 per cent of the Education Sector Reforms (ESR) programmes covered different EFA goals. She said the target groups for EFA goals belonged to the disadvantaged communities having minimal opportunities and highly vulnerable without access to learning facilities.

She said a reasonable tax rebate would be granted on the expenditures incurred on the setting up of educational facilities by the private sector. Matching grants have already been provided to them for establishing private educational institutions in the rural and poor urban areas through national and provincial education foundations, she added.