HYDERABAD: Awami Jam­­hoori Party president Abrar Kazi has urged the Sindh government to impose five-year education emergency in the province and divert all resources to the uplift of the education sector during that period.

Unless Sindh chief minister, who was likely to announce ‘education emergency’ at a special cabinet meeting on Sept 8, his cabinet members and all parliamentarians were determined to improve standard of education, this war could not be won, said Mr Kazi.

He was speaking at a press conference at his party office on Wednesday. In Sindh, the standard of education was at the lowest ebb and the AJP had been demanding time and again imposition of education emergency for the past three years.

Since the chief minister, he said, was likely to announce education emergency, the AJP was putting forward some proposals in this regard.

Besides declaring education emergency, the chief minister, people of Sindh and the Sindh government should stop unions of students and teachers from disrupting academic activities through boycott of classes and examinations.

He said that holidays should not be more than 138 days in a year so that 227 days were available for education. Schedule of assemblies and periods should be implemented strictly in each school and union council or committee concerned should be tasked to take care of the schools’ lavatories, which were in a pretty bad shape, he said.

He said that during the first year of emergency, one school each of boys and girls in every taluka should be upgraded to a model school and be equipped with modern laboratories, libraries, computer laboratories and internet. These schools should be given required number of teaching staff, furniture and educational environment as well, he said.

He said the schools’ budget should be handed over to a committee of notables of the area to ensure it was properly utilised. Solar system should be installed in small schools where watchmen were posted and 10 schools should be selected in each union council and committee on emergency basis and their basic requirements be met in order to improve standard of education, he proposed.

He said that clerical staff should also be appointed in each taluka office to help sort out teachers’ issues so that they could devote all the time they had to education.

Similar clerical staff should also take care of post-retirement affairs of teachers, he said.

He said that of all the 12 demands, 10 did not involve any financial aspect. Khadim Talpur, Amanullah Shaikh, Imdad Panhwar, Kaleem Malik, Adil Chandio and Mukhtiar Abbasi were also present at the news conference.

Published in Dawn September 8th, 2016