ABBOTTABAD, July 29: Federal Minister for Education Zobaida Jalal has said that the government has lifted a ban on registration of Madressas and necessary funds have been transferred to provinces for onward utilization.

She was talking to journalists at a reception arranged by Abrar Saeed Swati, Divisional President of PPP, here on Thursday after presiding over the sixth inter-provincial education ministers' conference. The event was attended by provincial ministers, AJK minister and high-ranking education officers of the federal and provincial governments.

The minister claimed that significant achievement had been made in the education sector under a reforms programme and literacy rate had increased from 45 per cent to 55 per cent. She said the government expected to achieve 60 per cent literacy rate by year 2005.

She said the NWFP government had put forward in the conference some suggestions and reservations on the curriculum issue, which would be looked into. Regarding the issue of curriculum, Ms Jalal said an 'error' had been rectified and efforts were now being made to avoid such situations in future.

She said they were now focussing their attention on the Education For All programme. The federal minister said that to remove the deficiency and to eliminate the dual education standard, they had planned to introduce English language from Class I in government schools, saying it would be a major step in this regard.