A wall of the Islamabad Model School, G-7/2, gives a worn-out look.
A wall of the Islamabad Model School, G-7/2, gives a worn-out look.

The Prime Minister Education Reforms Programme, launched by former primer Nawaz Sharif, is facing inordinate delay creating problems not only for students but teachers as well.

The Capital Development Authority had initially carried facelift work in 22 schools in 2016.

After that the government assigned the facelift work in 200 schools to a Project Management Unit (PMU) working under the now defunct ministry of Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD). The PMU has handed over 100 schools to Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) after completion of work.

However, after formation of PTI government, the education sector of the capital was handed over to ministry of education, hence the PMU was also transferred there.

The project is still incomplete and facing delay, apparently because of shortage of funding.

The project manager Waqas Farid told Dawn that Rs500 million were still required to complete this project. “We have moved a summary for this supplementary grant,” he added.

Replying to a question he said: “The work in remaining 100 schools is in progress, but we needs fund to complete this project,” he said.

Mr Farid said that once funds were released the project would be completed in two months. He, however, said 25 more schools would be ready by end of thhis month.

“Since work was started in all schools simultaneously, 80pc work has been completed,” he said.

Earlier, the project faced several issues as schools heads had refused to take over the schools from PMU after completion of work, because of controversy attached with the entire project. The project faced allegations of substandard work and in 2018 National Accountability Bureau (NAB) also started investigation, which is still in progress.

The project worth Rs2.5 billion was started by CADD without any consultation with the schools heads as even principals were not given any details about the work and the budget it will incur.

Some school teachers Dawn spoke to said that because of incomplete work, teachers and students are facing problems.

Malik Ameer of Federal Government Teacher Association said that government should focus on this project.

“We want early completion of this project as in many schools teachers and students face difficulty because of civil work,” he said and added that there should be no compromise on quality of work as taxpayer money is being spent on this project.

Ministry of Education Joint Secretary Syed Umair Javed, who is also holding acting charge of director general FDE while talking to Dawn said this project should be completed without any delay.

He said there are 423 educational institutions under the FDE and the facelift project would cover 200 schools while the rest would be provided the missing facilities including the facelift through another project to be executed by Public Works Departments (PWD) for which approximately Rs800 million funding would be required.

Mr Javed said: “We are in process of completing PC-I for the new project to include it in upcoming fiscal year 2020-21. Initially, 145 institutions out of 223 have been marked with missing facilities.

In 2018, an inquiry report prepared by FDE pointed out massive irregularities and substandard work in facelift of 200 schools.

The inquiry had pointed out that there were flaws in PC-I of the project and end users, the schools principals, were not given any details about the work to be carried out in their schools. The project director said that after removing deficiencies, if any, the schools were taken over by the PMU as contractors were bound to complete the work as per set standards, he claimed.

Under the said PM reform programme, which was in fact started in haste by CADD ministry, 200 buses were also procured for schools and colleges, but their drivers were not provided.

The buses procured by CADD were given to schools and colleges but many officials said procurement of such huge fleet of buses was useless for schools in rural areas as students there live nearby.

While some officials praised the government for providing buses saying the students needed such facilities. However, so far, there is no system in place for hiring staff and fuel for the buses rather schools heads are managing them on their own.

Sources said that some schools have no funds, therefore, principals were not using the facility as they have no money and staff to run the buses. Sources said that FDE through education ministry is making efforts to get approval from ministry of finance for regular budget and staff for the buses.

Published in Dawn, February 16th, 2020

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