LAHORE, Feb 12: Data about 90,000 or so educational institutions of all categories in the public and private sector in the country has been collected so far under the first National Education Census.
Federal Secretary Asad Elahi of the Statistics Division told Dawn here that some 300,000 pre-primary to PhD level educational institutions working all over the country would be covered under the maiden education census.
Expenditure incurred and the receipts during the 2004-05 academic year were also being included in the census, the secretary said.
For the first time, the head of the institution would verify the information by affixing his signature and official stamp.
However, the information provided would be treated as confidential and only be used for obtaining aggregate statistics and not be made available to any individual, government agency or department for any other purpose.
“Verification of the councillor concerned will be sought if a village has no educational institution,” Mr Asad said.
“Some 1,100 enumerators are collecting every minute detail of the institutions according to international standards. All the provincial governments have data about the educational institutions under their control. This is for the first time that a neutral body or third party is collecting comprehensive information about all the educational institutions in the country, including FATA, Northern Areas besides Azad Kashmir,” he said.
A team comprising officials of the ministry of education and the Federal Bureau of Statistics would counter check the filing of forms by the enumerators by conducting surprise raids in the field.
The data about the pre-primary, primary, elementary, middle, high, secondary, higher secondary, intermediate, degree, home economics, business management, information technology, law, agriculture, fine arts, education, medical and dental, pharmacy, engineering, accountancy, mono and polytechnic, vocational, special education, nursing, homoeopathic, Tibbia and Ayurvadic, veterinary and animal sciences schools, colleges and universities, non-formal basic education, distance education, besides Deeni Madaris would be collected, compiled and tabulated and the census report would be released in May, he said.
The process of data collection was started on Nov 21 by the Federal Bureau of Statistics of the finance and economic affairs ministry in collaboration with the education ministry and with the assistance of Unesco.
“The objectives are to develop national education database, systemize regular availability of adequate and updated data at the federal, provincial and district levels, bring all types and tiers of private and public educational institutions and Deeni Madaris into comprehensive network for regular monitoring and the availability of quality education,” he said.
The report, Mr Asad said, would not only provide a strong footing for the education ministry for future planning but it would also be very beneficial for all tiers of the government because it would help plan and evaluate development activities in the education sector at the federal, provincial, tehsil and district levels.
LIVESTOCK: The third phase of the fourth Livestock Census will start in the NWFP and Balochistan from Monday (today) with district meetings and training of enumerators.
The staff of the livestock or animal husbandry and dairy development departments of the two provinces will be the enumerators and supervisors, Federal Secretary Asad Elahi said.
The supervisors and enumerators would be given intensive training at district and tehsil headquarters by the staff of the Agriculture Census Organization on the methodology, sampling and filling-in of census questionnaire till Feb 25.
The third-phase enumeration of the census would begin from March 1 in 25 districts, federal regions and agencies of the NWFP and 18 districts of Balochistan.
The enumeration would be completed by April 20 in Peshawar, Swabi, Mardan, Nowshehra, Charsadda, Mohmand Agency, Kohat, Hangu, Karak, Bannu, Lakki Marwat, North and South Waziristan, Tank, Dera Ismail Khan districts, Peshawar, Kohat, Bannu, Lakki, Tank, Dera Ismail Khan federal regions and Khyber, Central Kurram and Orakzai agencies of the NWFP.
In Balochistan, Jafarabad, Naseerabad, Jhal Magsi, Bolan, Sibi, Barkhan, Musakhel, Chagai, Noshki, Awaran, Panjgoor, Kharan, Washuk, Khuzdar, Lasbella, Gwadar and Turbat districts are to be covered.
A manual, covering all aspects of training, would be given to the enumerators so that they could frame and re-frame questions to ascertain requisite information.
The training at each district headquarters would last for three days — two days for classroom lecture and one-day training in the field.
ACO Commissioner Liaquat Ali Shah said the staff of his organization would be posted at district headquarters for supervision, monitoring and guidance of the enumerators during the field operation or enumeration.
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