LAHORE, July 29: Punjab Education Minister Imran Masood has said that district governments could not properly run some 417 colleges under their control because nazims lacked interest and experience.

“Most appointments, transfers and postings had been made on a political basis. Therefore, the government had taken back powers of appointing BS-19 officials in the colleges from them (nazims),” Mr Masood told Dawn here on Friday.

He said the district government could not spend funds allocated for the development of these colleges. The district governments used to spend funds allocated for the colleges on other schemes to win the support of voters, he added.

Regarding complaints about private schools, the minister said most of them were minting money in the name of education.

He said they exploited parents’ desire of sending their children to good schools to get quality education.

About a regulatory authority to control their affairs, he said that it was a difficult task since there had been no latest census of private schools.

The minister said the Federal Bureau of Statistics in collaboration with the Punjab Educational Management Information System (PEMIS) would soon carry out a census of private schools in the province at a cost of Rs500 million.

“The exact number of schools both registered and unregistered can only be known after the census. At present, there are conflicting reports about the total number of private schools.”

He said the census report would certainly help the committee, which was constituted to make a proposed draft law to control the affairs of the private schools.

Answering questions on the Punjab Education Sector Reforms Programme, Mr Masood said that considering its viability the World Bank had approved Rs100 million for 10 years.

He said the three-year project was launched one-and-a-half year ago giving a monthly stipend to girl students and free textbooks to schoolchildren at a cost of Rs21 billion. The government was achieving its target and would extend the programme, he said.

The minister informed that only one per cent of the total fund of the project was being utilized on the advertisement campaign which was necessary to create awareness. He said the chief minister had set up a monitoring evaluation cell to check the implementation of the programme. In fact, it was a direct check on the performance of the education ministry, he added.

Mr Masood welcomed the Aga Khan Examination Board and said government boards should not be afraid of competing with any private board.

“Performance of all eight government boards has improved and for this reason I believe that entrance test for admission to medical colleges and engineering universities should be eliminated.”

Replying to a question, he said the chief minister’s approval was needed to end the entrance test once for all.

To improve the standard of syllabus, the minister said he had constituted a committee to involve teachers, experts and education department officials in this regard.

When asked the government was promoting ad hocism as all recruitments in colleges and schools were being made on a contract, Mr Masood said the government could not bear pension expenses.

Answering a question regarding issuing a notice to Government College Township Associate Prof Dr Ajmal Niazi for contributing to a newspaper, he explained that the notice had nothing to do with the freedom of expression. It just reminded government employees of observing legal formalities and code of conduct while contributing to newspapers and other periodicals.

He said the government did not mind logical and reality based articles. If a government employee levelled false allegations, he should be held responsible, he said.

The minister said his ministry’s top priority was to increase enrolment and decrease the drop-out rate in public sector schools, besides promotion of technical education.

He said the PEMIS had identified lack of infrastructure in about 40,000 schools in public sector, adding the government would develop them in two to three years.