LAHORE, Sept 10: Federal Education Minister Javed Ashraf Qazi said on Saturday vocational centres would be established in the provinces to impart technical education to dropout children. An overseeing body on technical education would also be formed after approval by the President Gen Pervez Musharraf, he said, adding the body would comprise federal ministers for education, industries and labour.

The minister stated this at a meeting with Saadia S. Chaudhry, advisor to chief minister on education, NGOs and donor coordination, at the BISE building. Punjab Education Minister Mian Imran Masood was also present.

Matters concerning education and proposals to improve donor coordination were discussed. The minister said the government was considering various proposals to improve the country’s educational system and would soon give a presentation to the president on the overall performance the sector had made so far.

He said provinces would provide lands and indicate places where vocational centres should be established while the federal government would fund and control them.

Mr Qazi said there was a proposal to register NGOs with the Education Foundation while a regulatory body would monitor their working in the education sector. “Donors would have to coordinate with the provincial education department while launching any project,” he added.

Stressing the need for teachers’ self-training, he said they had suggested monetary incentives to enable the academics to improve their education. They should be given at least BPS-14 on induction, he added.

He said the president had approved Rs7 billion for establishing 240,000 literacy centres in the country under the literacy programme, but only Rs700 million had been spent on the project so far.

“We are revising the whole structure of education under which the teachers would be given a minimum of Rs3,000 and the department would pay the utility bills of the literacy centres,” said the minister.

Similarly, the Rs60 billion Education Sector Reforms Programme of the World Bank was suffering owing to funds’ shortage. Now the bank would release the funds quarterly.—APP