KARACHI, Jan 1: The overall enrolment in Thatta district schools has increased owing to a number of incentives offered by the government, a report of the Chief Minister's Inspection Team said.

The CMIT had recently visited the area and inspected several educational institutions there. The report claimed that the enrolment at the schools had risen due to the government incentives, such as free distribution of books and The Tawana Pakistan feeding programme, started in the district from class I, which had also attracted thousands of girls to the schools.

The National Commission for Human Development, in a door-to-door survey conducted in the district, had traced 54,000 out-of-school children in the area, and efforts had been made to bring them to the schools through community mobilization, it said.

The CMIT revealed that majority of the books were received late in November and even in December, adding that there were reports from some schools that the books had not been received at all, as in the case of Jhampir Girls Primary School.

It was reported by Thatta district government that the Decentralized Elementary Education Project (DEEP), aimed at promoting the middle school enrolment in Sindh, which had to be executed, including all civil works and procurement, through district governments, had not been made operational and funds had not been transferred to the districts.

During its visit to schools, the CMIT found that to misappropriate the public funds, the school management committees were forced to buy low quality furniture and educational material at 'inflated' prices, causing enormous financial loss to the government, the report said.

An amount of around Rs61 million was released to the district government Thatta under the SMC funds and major part of the amount appeared to have been misappropriated, it observed.

The CMIT proposed a detailed inquiry into the matter, to be conducted by the Regional Accountability Bureau, so that those involved could be identified, apprehended and the wasted amount be recovered and transferred to the SMCs for development purposes.

It regretted that no efforts had been made by the district government to reopen the 219 closed schools in the district. The CMIT also observed that there was no progress in implementation on compulsory primary education in the district, calling for immediate measures to mobilize the community to bring girls and boys to the schools.-APP