LAHORE: The government has decided to introduce teaching licences and a bill to the effect will be tabled in the Punjab Assembly soon, says Education Minister Murad Raas.

“Like doctors and engineers, teachers will also be registered and a law to the effect will be shortly laid before the Punjab Assembly,” the minister said while summing up debate on education in the house here on Friday.

He said the initiative would provide better employment opportunities to teachers in other countries.

He informed the lawmakers that the proposed law would also tackle harassment of students and teaching staff at private schools.

He also claimed that after online registration of 60,000 private schools post-Eidul Azha, the role of money and sifarish (recommendation) would be abolished. He lamented that technology was never used in governing educational institutions by previous governments.

Minister says the step will improve quality of education, check harassment

Mr Rass said when he took charge of the portfolio, he thought as if he had been assigned the task of transfer minister as there was a huge load of transfer applications pending for years. He said the PML-N ruled the province for 10 consecutive years but didn’t develop any system to regularize transfers in the education sector.

He said the PTI government developed an App without any cost and thus 22,000 transfer cases were settled to the satisfaction of parents of women teachers with only 23 complaints.

The minister said that 70 per cent students give up learning after clearing primary only because of lack of middle schools in their neighbourhoods. He said at least 100,000 students were brought back to schooling by upgrading 1,227 education facilities, whereas 1,000 evening schools would soon be introduced.

He said that all vacancies in state-run schools in the province would be filled within a year.

Earlier, opposition members protested against what they said discriminatory attitude of the chair, being held by panel of chairmen Mian Muhammad Shafi, as treasury members were allowed to speak their mind on points of orders, while the opposition was denied the chance on the excuse of rules of business.

The protestors thumped their desks, tore down copies of the agenda for the day and resorted to sloganeering against the government.

The chair also didn’t agree to give more time on the issue after Friday sermon or re-opening the debate on Monday, when the house would meet again after two-day (Saturday-Sunday) usual break.

During the Question Hour, PML-N’s Raheela Khadim Hussain taunted Forest Minister Sibtain Khan by saying the minister mentioned only two seasons in response to a query and omitted 10 other seasons, a reference to Prime Minister Imran Khan’s ‘slip of tongue’ claiming Pakistan has been blessed with 12 seasons.

She said she won’t bother Sibtain Khan too much as he was already being bothered by NAB (the National Accountability Bureau).

Perhaps, not getting the taunt, the minister said instead she should name the rest of 10 seasons. Referring to the NAB case, he said he had resigned as minister on his own after the case and again joined the cabinet only after he was bailed out.

Coming to his rescue, Law Minister Muhammad Basharat Raja said the forest minister was sitting here only after securing bail in the NAB case, while they (the treasury) were tolerating opposition leader Hamza Shahbaz though the latter had not secured bail in the NAB cases.

Published in Dawn, July 25th, 2020