KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah and Federal Education Minister Shafqat Mahmood on Thursday exchanged views on the federal government’s plan to introduce a uniform syllabus designed by the federal education ministry across the country.

During a meeting with Mr Mahmood at CM House, the chief minister said designing of school syllabus was a provincial subject after the passage of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, however, the federal education minister had taken an initiative with the objective to introduce a similar syllabus in the country.

The chief minister assured the federal minister that the Sindh government would support the plan.

The syllabus prepared by the federal education ministry would be taught in all government, private and English-medium schools across Pakistan.

The federal minister told the chief minister that he had taken Wafaqul Madaris and religious scholars concerned into confidence for registration of madressahs.

He said divisional committees under commissioners would be constituted to monitor implementation of the federal government’s educational plan. He said religious scholars were cooperating with the government.

The chief minister said: “Our madressah people are supporting the government in promotion of peace and introduction of formal education along with religious courses.”

Earlier, the federal education minister held a detailed meeting with Sindh Education Minister Saeed Ghani vis-à-vis introduction of uniform syllabus in the country.

Schemes in three districts

Meanwhile, CM Shah on the third consecutive day reviewed 298 ongoing development schemes worth Rs16.57 billion in Hyderabad, Jamshoro and Dadu districts and expressed his displeasure at the pace of the schemes, which was unacceptably sluggish.

He ordered that work on slow-moving schemes be geared up with personal attention of the departments concerned and elected local representatives.

Provincial ministers and advisers Nisar Khuhro, Shabbir Bijarani, Saeed Ghani, Nasir Shah, and Sohail Siyal, Chief Secretary Mumtaz Shah, chairman of P&D Mohammed Waseem, secretaries of finance and local government, and others attended the meeting.

The meeting participants were told that 112 schemes of Rs7.5bn were in progress in Hyderabad against which Rs5.1bn had been released while expenditure was Rs3.7bn which was 73 per cent of the releases.

Similarly, 97 development schemes were in progress in Jamshoro district for Rs3.9bn against which Rs1.9bn had been released while Rs1bn was utilised, which was 57pc of the released funds.

In Dadu district, 89 schemes of Rs5.1bn were in progress against which Rs1.41bn had been released while the utilisation of funds was Rs935.5m which was 66pc of the total released amount.

Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2020