LAHORE, Nov 10: The Punjab government on Thursday decided to control by itself the district monitoring system for the education-sector reform programme and appoint monitoring assistants in every tehsil.
It empowered the implementation and coordination wing of the Services and General Administration Department to transfer and post all district monitoring officers, also authorizing the provincial education minister to conduct their fortnightly meetings to ensure satisfactory implementation of the multi-million programme.
The decisions to the effect were taken at a meeting, which was presided over by Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi, who said the programme had been made more effective for achieving the desired results.
Official sources said the same pattern would also be adopted for the health-sector reform programme to ensure its effective implementation.
The government had appointed DMG and provincial service officials as district monitoring officers for maintaining a liaison with the local governments and the province regarding the implementation of the social sector reforms.
But, the establishment matters regarding their transfer and posting were being handled by the DCOs.
Sources said the government would soon appoint evaluation and monitoring assistants at the tehsil level to have a full grip over the execution network.
They said the chief minister desired that a copy of the complaints about the execution of any education project and its redress should be duly sent to him and the education minister.
It was not enough to receive complaints or find faults with the projects. It was more important to timely redress the complaints or remove the faults.
“I will fix responsibility if any slackness is shown in this regard,” the chief minister was quoted as having said.
Chief Secretary Salman Siddique, who heads the social-sector reform steering committee, said the body would quickly remove inter-departmental difficulties regarding the implementation of the programme.
Meanwhile, the chief minister said handicraft schools would be introduced in the tent villages of the quake-affected people. He directed that quality construction of the educational institutions’ buildings should be ensured. Any fault in any building should be removed before the completion of the construction, he said.
The chief minister said a strategy had been devised to take stern action on the reports of the monitoring officers at the district level. They would be bound to undertake inspection of the under-construction buildings of schools and colleges and initiate action on the complaints about the substandard construction. The EDO works would ensure the use of quality construction material.
He said attendance of teachers should be regularly checked for improving the quality of education and literacy rate. Prompt and stern action should be taken against the absentee teachers, he ordered.
The chief minister said he would personally hold meetings on a monthly basis to review the pace of implementation of the social-sector monitoring system.