LAHORE: The government needs to focus on immediate provision of schools in particular for girls in the province with an increased disbursement of funds and recruitment of teachers on merit, says a report on “2013-18 Five years of education reform: Punjab wins, losses and challenges for the future 2018-23”, published by Alif Ailaan on Wednesday.

The report launch ceremony was held at the Chief Minister Secretariat on The Mall. The ceremony was attended by School Education Minister Rana Mashhood Ahmad, School Education Secretary Dr Allah Bakhsh Malik, The Citizens Foundation co-founder Ateed Riaz, LUMS School of Education Dean Dr Mariam Chughtai, Idara-e-Taleem-o-Agahi CEO Dr Baela Raza Jamil and Senior Research Fellow at IDEAS Dr Faisal Bari.

The event was also attended by prominent lawmakers from across the country, including Sardar Hussain Babak, Faisal Sabzwari, Raza Haroon, Usman Kakar, Samia Raheel Qazi, Ahmad Iqbal Chaudhry, Amna Sardar, Barrister Masood, Nusrat Seher Abbasi, Noor Saleem Khan and Waqas Jafri.

According to the report (which has been shared with Dawn), the Punjab Education Sector Reform Programme (PESRP) and School Education Reforms Roadmap provided a holistic strategy for achieving systemic sectoral improvements over the last five years. The reforms put a special emphasis on higher enrolment and retention, improved learning outcomes and quality of education, and a better managed, monitored and administered education sector.

Some of the flagship efforts under the programme include developing improved monitoring systems, improving the provision and quality of teaching, restructuring of governance systems through District Education Authorities (DEAs), a robust public-private partnership programme through the Punjab Education Foundation (PEF), and the development of interventions that strengthen incentives and accountability for service delivery performance.

The last five years witnessed a substantial level of political and financial investment backed by unprecedented technical innovation in tackling the education crisis in Punjab, but the gains of the reforms enacted are still fragile. Enrolment, retention, learning outcomes, public financial management, school infrastructure, discrepancies in the data regime and centralisation of all these efforts continue to pose substantial challenges to the provincial authorities.

The report further suggested the government to focus on some steps including immediate provision of middle and high schools across the province especially for girls, increase in education allocations, disbursement and utilisation with efficient spending, more efforts needed to deconcentrate, devolve and decentralise schools, annual school census including private schools, head teachers provision in all schools of the province, merit-based recruitment followed up with lifelong career planning and management.

Dr Mariam Chughtai said she wanted to highlight two points after viewing the report including primary school level gains and middle and high school dropout students. She said the report suggested that measures should be taken to increase the number of middle and high schools. “Is our economy absorbing the primary level people and why is there steep drop in other classes,” she questioned.

She said the government could not rectify the bigger problem of the education by building Daanish schools and providing opportunities to some of the people. She said some of the participants said Pakistan could use its human resource but when the government could not provide them equal opportunities it could lead to disaster.

Dr Allah Bakhsh Malik said that due to revolutionary steps of the Punjab government, the children of poor and underprivileged class were getting the education as per the standard of Aitchison College in the Daanish schools. He said that due to these steps, the results of intermediate, matriculation and the Punjab Education Commission had been improved.

Faisal Bari said the government should rethink the old model of schools and the current model should be upgraded with the help of the latest technology. He said as most of the students were found leaving the study after 10th grade, the government should adopt a plan to provide them second chance to complete their 16 years of education.

The government had been claiming that they were providing free education and also giving stipend to the students for books. “Is the government also giving transportation to the student?” he questioned. Mr Bari said transportation had become a big issue for continuity of the studies. “We cannot bring schools, colleges and universities close to the residences of the students but can ensure an effective transportation system,” he said.

He said the report suggested that an academy was established for teachers’ training. At the same time, he said, steps should be taken for organising motivational programmes for teachers.

Rana Mashhood said the Punjab government had started stocktaking initiative and worked towards public-private partnerships that have helped not only with accountability but also policy-making ensuring effective and timely solutions.

Published in Dawn, March 8th, 2018