KARACHI, Jan 25: An education sector work plan would be formulated to conduct study, survey and situation analysis to launch a comprehensive plan for development in education sector in Sindh.

An agreement to this effect was signed by the Sindh Education Department and the World Bank's mission at a meeting here on Tuesday.

According to an official statement, the meeting was held between Sindh Education Minister Dr Hamida Khuhro and World Bank's Senior Manager for Education and Human Development in South Asia Michell Riboud. Tahseen Sayed and Dr Naveed Naqi from World Bank Islamabad and Additional Secretary (Schools) Iqbal Ahmed Durrani were also present at the meeting.

Sindh Education Minister will be the chairperson of the education sector work plan with Tahseen Sayed and Dr Naveed Naqi from the World Bank and an additional secretary of education department will work as members to collect data, assess the present situation and finalize strategy to give boost to the education sector in Sindh.

Dr Khuhro informed the delegation of the problems being faced in education sector. In this regard, she said that the drop-out rate of students after acquiring primary education was her main concern.

She was of the view that insufficient schools and untrained teachers were the major problems in this respect. The minister stated that the comprehensive training plan for capacity building of teaching manpower was being launched to increase the expertise of teachers.

This would help retain children in schools and motivate those parents who were not sending children to schools, she pointed out adding that establishing more schools is also on her agenda but it is her top priority to recruit local teachers to overcome the shortfall.

She pointed out that there were complaints against the working of School Management Committees, which were not giving satisfactory output, and urged the need of independent body to monitor the system.

Mentioning that there is an over-lapping of donors in some districts, she stressed that there was a need for the donors and the funding agencies to work in a coordinated manner. -APP