HYDERABAD, June 1: Sindh Minister for Education Pir Mazharul Haq has admitted that government officials have failed to revive non-functional schools within the 45-day deadline he had set for them and warned that action would be taken from ‘top to bottom’ instead of usual practice of bottom to top.

The minister said at an awards distribution ceremony at the Government Jan Mohammad Jamali School on Saturday that the education secretary had been directed to issue a circular to the EDOs to ensure a big room was spared in each high school for the establishment of a library.

He said that the government would provide books to the libraries to help students adopt reading habit. It was a universally-acknowledged principle that one could get education effectively in his mother tongue, therefore, the government had decided to encourage Sindhi medium schools, he said.

He said that the Sindhi medium schools of rural areas could prove instrumental in imparting qualitative education with the help of teachers, parents and students.

He said that learning languages other than one’s mother tongue greatly helped in forging love, affection and brotherhood among different sections of society.

Mr Haq said that he knew Sindhis could speak more languages, which included Urdu, Seraiki and so on and appealed to non-Sindhi members of society to learn Sindhi.

He said that it had been decided that all the old educational buildings of the province would be repaired and renovated and they would be restored to their original shape. The government would look into the issue of deletion of salees Sindhi from the syllabus of HSC Part-I and II, he said.

The minister directed the managements of government schools to hold parent-teacher meetings on a regular basis and directed the managements of government and private schools to introduce IT as a subject in their schools.

He advised people to prefer buying computers instead of refrigerators, TVs or other luxuries and said that the government was preparing a policy to give cultivated government land to women farmers instead of men to ensure empowerment of women and eliminate gender discrimination.

Earlier, the minister gave away prizes to outstanding students and announced granting a computer to the Government Jan Mohammad Jamali School.