LAHORE, April 30: Punjab Education Minister Mian Imran Masood has criticized education secretary Shahid Rasheed for not finalizing the inquiry report, which is to fix responsibility for inclusion of misleading and objectionable material in textbooks.

Replying to a question posed by reporters after the 35th convocation of the College of Home Economics here on Friday, the minister said: "If he (the secretary) is sleeping, we will awake him."

The minister uttered this sentence thrice for the education secretary, who has failed to fix responsibility and submit a report on the changes in curricula even after three weeks.

Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi had constituted a committee, headed by Mr Rasheed, to expurgate unsavoury material from the textbooks and identify those responsible for the deletion of certain texts and inclusion of misleading and objectionable contents in the textbooks.

While constituting a committee on April 10, the chief minister had directed it to submit its report within a week. However, the committee has failed to fix responsibility and submit report to the chief minister so far.

In response to a statement that the committee might be undecided about who should be made scapegoat, the minister said smilingly: "This may be the case." Regarding the non-delivery of free textbooks to a large number of students in the public sector schools, the minister said the department had received some 20 per cent extra demand of the textbooks, but the board had no capacity to print such a huge number immediately.

He, however, pledged that every student would be provided textbooks within few days. The minister also told reporters that Dr Azam had been appointed the first vice-chancellor of the Gujrat University. He said the government had selected Dr Azam for the post for his vast experience.

The department had also moved a summary to acquire the Auqaf department's land for the university, he said. Answering another question, he said the principal of the College of Home Economics should be included in the advisory committee being constituted to collaborate with the two newly-established colleges of home economics in Gujranwala and Multan.

When contacted, special education secretary Nazir Saeed said the department had requisitioned to recruit 500 lecturers against vacant posts. He said the department had also recommended to the government that lecturers should be given high salaries and incentives to fill over 100 "chronic vacant seats" in the province.

Mr Masood told a questioner that the education department had promoted 250 college teachers, but didn't issue the notification on the demand of those who wanted to ensure their postings at same institutions.

"Some of them will definitely be adjusted in their institutions, but a majority of them will be required to leave their existing stations of postings," he said.