LAHORE: Punjab Minister for School Education Murad Raas launched the School Enrollment Campaign 2019-20 on Saturday without specific targets to impart quality education and promote learning.

Data from the 2018 drive showed that the provincial government intended to enrol 13.55 million children in schools, but was successful in enroling 11.95 million children or 88.21 per cent.

However, the current government has not set any target for this year’s campaign; it was school specific as per capacity, focusing on improving quality of education and retention.

The minister formally announced launching of the campaign during a Pakistan Day ceremony at Government Model High School Chungi Gujjarpura. He urged parents to get their children enroled in public schools of their area to secure the future of this generation.

He said children and teachers were their foremost responsibility and they would provide latest curriculum to the students to make them moderate personalities. The government was also launching centres for providing equal, qualitative and classless education.

Mr Raas said they were adopting teacher-friendly policies and the teachers would be given all facilities to develop confidence in their students. “We will also provide quality books and facilities to the students to improve quality of education,” he added.

He further said that the government was adopting long-term policies in the education sector because no nation could prosper without provision of quality education.

Lahore Deputy Commissioner Saleha Saeed said the children of the country were intelligent and they should promise to continue their studies to make Pakistan prosperous.

Lahore District Education Authority Chief Executive Officer Pervaiz Akhtar said there were no specific targets in terms of numbers in the enrolment campaign. “We have developed school-specific targets as per available capacity of the schools, including infrastructure and teachers,” he said.

He also said that they were focusing on logical targets first to improve the quality of education and retention. “We are ensuring that the children who get admission in public schools should complete their schooling there.”

Mr Akhtar said they would provide modern and Islam-based education to children for development of the nation. They were developing a curriculum based on different lessons from the life of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), patriotism and according to the ideology of Pakistan. He said they would develop best moral values in the future generation of the country who would stand against corruption and other mismanagements.

The minister distributed free books among the students at the ceremony.

Published in Dawn, March 24th, 2019