LAHORE: Punjab Minister for School Education Murad Raas on Saturday inaugurated the first ‘model school’ under the Insaf School Programme.

The model school inauguration ceremony was held at the City District Government High School, Kabootarpura, Gulberg. Special Secretary Schools Education Ghulam Farid, educationists, teachers and students attended the event.

The government intends to start afternoon schools in 20 districts in the first phase till March 2019.

The minister said the PTI government would prove the slogan of providing quality education and modern facilities to the poor and less privileged students. He said the establishment of the Early Childhood Education Classroom would provide congenial environment to children in schools to increase their interest in education.

Mr Raas said the inauguration of early childhood education classroom, water filtration plant, girls-friendly toilet and IT laboratories were startup of new Pakistan. He said the initiative of new classrooms would prove to be an important milestone.

He said the teachers would also have the latest educational concepts including classroom management and child psychology. He said the government-run schools would be made better than the private schools and added that comprehensive reforms agenda was under way to improve the schooling infrastructure in the province.

He said the government would start the programme in 1,700 schools of nine districts of the province in the first phase. The programme would be launched in 20 schools of a district including Lahore, Bhakkar, Jhang, Dera Ghazi Khan, Rawalpindi, Rahim Yar Khan, Multan, Mianwali and Sargodha.

He said the School Health and Nutrition Program would also be extended to other districts in the second phase. “We are launching the programme to monitor the nutrition of the students and also wanted to know about their need. Medical checkup of the students would also be conducted periodically,” he said.

He said compulsory sports would be introduced and the programme regarding provision of cycles to students in 20 districts would be extended.

The participants observed one-minute silence in the memory of the martyrs of the Army Public School, Peshawar.

The minister also inaugurated the water filtration plant for the provision of clean drinking water to the students and also inaugurated neat and clean girl-friendly toilet in Gulberg school.

Published in Dawn, December 16th, 2018