ISLAMABAD, Sept 13: The government has finally approved upgradation of 121 secondary and elementary federal government institutions of the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) with a cost of Rs237 million to bring these on a par with 19 Islamabad Model Colleges (IMCs).
An official source told Dawn that the Planning Commission, in a recent meeting, had approved the project to be implemented in two phases aiming at bringing 41 federal government secondary schools and 80 federal government elementary schools (both boys and girls) on a par with the model colleges.
The education ministry had moved the feasibility of the project before the Central Development Working Party (CDWP) for release of Rs647 million. The CDWP had approved the project in January and forwarded it to the Planning Commission for formal approval. An amount of Rs237 million was released for provision of infrastructure including the construction of auditoriums, libraries, staff rooms, additional class rooms, computers and computer laboratories. The strength of the teaching faculties would also be enhanced under the project. The project has to be completed within two years.
Chairman Higher Education Commission (HEC) Prof (Dr) Attaur Rehman, when assumed the additional charge of the education ministry for a brief period, had directed submission of the project to ensure a uniform educational system, at least in the ICT.
He had directed upgradation of the schools after showing displeasure at the disparity between the federal government schools and the model colleges.
The capital is a unique city in the sense that within one educational setup two different streams of education system exist in the public sector educational institutions.
Thus the population of students has been divided into two different cultures: one belonging to the federal government school, the other to the model colleges.
Though the model colleges are 19 in numbers, these are far more popular than the 370 federal government schools.
“With the upgradation of these schools, the problem of evening shift and transportation will also come to an end,” the source said.
Earlier, the project submitted to the government had highlighted that about 555 seats of teachers were vacant in the FG institutions, out of which 173 were in boys and 382 in girls institutions.
The sanctioned strength of the teachers in these institutions from primary to the secondary level is 4,588 but only 4,033 have been filled.
At present, about 24 federal government schools do not have proper laboratories, while 290 new classrooms are still required to accommodate the existing strength of students. The students of these schools also lack basic facilities like drinking water, toilet blocks, perimeter walls especially in the girls schools.
The source said it was likely that after the implementation of the new policy, the service cadres of both the FG and model institutions will be merged into a common seniority list as per the general seniority rules.