HYDERABAD, Jan 20: District Nazim Kanwar Naveed Jameel has said that the district government has decided to form union council and taluka-level sub-committees to ensure community participation in enhancing the literacy rate and improving the quality of education.

He was talking to a delegation of the World Bank mission on the education sector reform assistance programme here on Thursday.

He said soon after formation of standing committees on education in the first session of district council, the district government would constitute UC and taluka-level sub-committees to implement the educational programme and fix priorities.

He said about 183 closed schools had been made functional by providing teaching staff and furniture.

He said that in order to provide technical and financial assistance, an amount of Rs17.837 million was being released to 875 school management committees in the district.

He said that Rs14.902 million had already been utilized to provide free text books to students from class-I to V and Rs7.862 million had been distributed as scholarships to 12,618 girl students from class VI to VIII under the Sindh education reform programme during the year 2005.

Referring to drop-out, substandard education and lack of facilities in government schools, the nazim said that under the programme “Education for all”, the district government had planned to provide at least basic and minimum facilities to schools.

They are: provision of teaching staff, equipment, furniture, electricity and drinking water.

He said a comprehensive training programme for teachers had also been launched by the district government under which 5,500 primary and high school teachers had been trained and remaining teachers were getting training to deliver qualitative education to students.

In addition, he said, stipend incentive was also being provided specially to girl students while Rs300 monthly allowance was being paid to parents and Rs10 per day to students in four educational centres running in the district under district Baitul Mall programme with a view to eradicating child labour.

He said though Hyderabad had been declared a model district in education performance, it was still facing challenges in the education sector which would be met by the district government with participation of community and donor agencies.

The nazim underlined some difficulties in implementing academic programme due to overlapping, lack of coordination among provincial and district governments and delay in release of funds by quarters concerned.

He expressed the hope that these problems would be solved through experience in the devolution system of government.

The visiting members of World Bank mission, Ms Sofia Shakil and Ms Reema Nayyar said that their organization was more interested in arresting drop-out of students and raising the standard of education.