LAHORE: Punjab Higher Education Minister Raja Yassir Humayun on Monday inspected the state guest house on The Mall for its conversion into a research university in line with austerity drive of Prime Minister Imran Khan.

A feasibility report would be later made to convert the premises into a university campus.

Higher Education Department additional secretary Mariyam Kiyani and others were also present.

Talking to the media, Mr Hamayun said: “Quality education is the priority of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government”.

He added he would also visit the guest house in Multan and submit a report to Prime Minister Imran Khan about conversion of both the guest houses into university campuses.

Ms Kiyani told Dawn the minister had visited the guest house to check the land and its building. She said they have yet to decide about conversion of the guest house into a university.

Prime Minister Imran Khan had announced during his election campaign he would declare the Prime Minister’s House a higher educational institution and the Governor Houses and guest houses would be turned into public parks after winning the election.

COMPLAINT CELL: Punjab Minister for Schools Education Murad Raas said a state-of-the-art complaint cell would be set up in the department to timely solve the complaints of teachers, students and other stakeholders.

He was presiding over a meeting at the Committee Room of New Ministers’ Block.

The minister was given briefing on upgrade of real-time monitoring, school information system and hotline system. He hoped the new interventions would help improve efficiency, quality of education and standard of performance of the department.

Mr Raas directed the officials to share the data on a daily basis and added that necessary system should be proactively utilised to resolve all the necessary matters of the people.

Secretary Schools Ambreen Raza, Additional Secretary Muhammad Tariq and others attended the meeting.

The minster later presided over another meeting at his office about the problems faced by the schools of Bahawalpur division.

The chief executive officers (education) apprised the minister of various issues pertaining to their respective districts.

The meeting pondered over the various proposals for installation of solar panels, water filtration plants and recruitment of teachers and other staff in the government schools.

Mr Raas observed special steps were needed for providing various missing facilities in schools and added that the provision of equal educational facilities to all the children was the commitment of the government.

Published in Dawn, September 4th, 2018