LAHORE, Feb 7: The Punjab education minister, expressing concern over the mushroom growth of substandard but expensive private educational institutions, has said a regulatory authority will be set up to check such schools.

Imran Masood was speaking at the concluding session of the two-day Allama Iqbal Youth Conference held by the Nazaria-i-Pakistan Foundation and the Pakistan Movement Workers Trust here on Friday.

The minister said such private schools which had been opened in all parts of the province were charging heavy fees, but paying meagre salaries to the teaching staff which was the worst form of exploitation. He said most of these schools were teaching defective curricula and distorted version of the Pakistan ideology and thus misleading the younger generation.

He said the children of the poor and the middle class who could not afford to pay heavy fees were feeling inferiority complex. The government would help them by upgrading the standard of government schools, he said. There were 63,000 primary, middle and secondary schools where 8.8 million children were taught by some 350,000 teachers. These schools were being maintained by some 250,000 non-teaching staff. The government was spending Rs33 billion on education annually out which Rs27 billion were spent on salaries of the staff, leaving a meagre amount for development purposes, he said.

The minister said the government had decided to make English and information technology compulsory subjects in its schools to enable the students to compete with private school students. While English would start from class I, the computer courses would start from class II or III. He said the government was also promoting vocational education to provide skill training to the maximum number of students as mere degrees in arts subjects was not sufficient to earn a respectable living under the present circumstances.

He stressed the need for promoting sports activities in schools, and said the intermediate and secondary education boards would be asked to provide necessary funds to schools for sports. He said special attention would be given to sports activities for girl students.

Former senator Dr Javid Iqbal said the need of the hour was that professional and vocational education and skill training be given to the students. He said arts degrees of BA and MA had some value in the past for entering the government service by qualifying the competitive examinations. Now the government service had lost its attraction because of low salaries, while the private sector was offering high salaries.

He said there should be no gender discrimination in education and both boys and girls should be given equal opportunities and facilities to acquire knowledge in the fields of their choice. He said education was necessary to make the women independent and avoid male chauvinism.