QUETTA: Balochistan’s secretary for secondary education, Abdul Saboor Kakra, said on Friday that only 2,778 of the 10,585 government primary schools in the province were for girls and that about 1,800 primary schools neither had rooms nor roofs.

Presiding over a meeting here, Mr Kakra said 495 of the 1,165 middle schools and 331 of the 783 high schools in the province were for girls.

He said that an adequate amount should be allocated in the next budget for establishing new schools for girls in the province.

Know more: A dismal state of education in Balochistan

The secretary said Rs40.7 billion was allocated for the education sector in the provincial budget of previous fiscal year which was inadequate to cater to the needs of educational institutions because about 70 per cent of the amount was spent on paying the salary of employees.

“We have submitted a proposal to the departments concerned to allocate at least Rs52bn for the sector in the budget for 2015-16 so that more facilities could be provided to the existing schools for girls and build new schools for them,” he said.

“The education department has submitted proposals for establishing 1,400 new primary schools and turning 1,000 primary schools into middle schools and 200 middle schools into high schools,” he said.

Mr Kakra said a proposal had been moved for allocation of Rs9,446 million for construction of rooms in 1,800 schools.

He said no construction work was carried out in the 268 primary schools which were upgraded to middle school level and the 212 middle schools which were upgraded to high school level in the past five years. The department had moved a proposal for allocation of Rs2,392m and Rs3,328m, respectively, for these schools.

Of all the provinces, Balochistan has the highest number of absentee teachers in government schools.

Addressing a press conference recently, Minister of State for Education Balighuz Zaman raised the issue and said a large of number of appointments in government schools were made on political basis.

The minister was in Quetta to preside over a national education conference aimed to formulate a national education policy. He said a large number of teachers did not perform their duty because despite being appointed in government schools they actually worked at private organisations.

Published in Dawn June 6th, 2015

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