Repair work: Procurement committees formed to revamp public schools

Four-member teams to work under school consolidation policy

KARACHI: Sindh's education and literacy department formed on Saturday procurement committees that will work under the school consolidation policy to repair and renovate all public school buildings.

According to the notification released on May 11 by the education department, the committees will be headed by the relevant school headmasters, who also hold the charge of drawing and disbursing officers. The schools have been asked to submit details to the education department, in order to receive funds for the repairs.

The procurement committee comprises four members, including school principal who will be the chairperson. A senior teacher of the relevant school will be the secretary, while works and services department's district assistant engineer will be a member and another district assistant engineer will work as cooperative non-voting member.

The committee has been formed to perform specific tasks to repair schools. These tasks include preparation of bidding documents, carrying out technical as well as financial evaluation of the bids, preparing evaluation reports as provided in the Sindh Public Procurement Rules Amendment rule 45 and to perform any other function ancillary and incidental.

"The amount for the repair will be given to the headmasters to renovate the school building," education secretary Fazlullah Pechuho told The Express Tribune. The grant for the repair work will be released for each school separately. Pechuho said that each school has a different budget, as per the number of students and total classes in the school. He added that the grant will be released keeping in view the school consolidation budget.

Since the last year's education budget, the department has released Rs1.5 billion for the campus schools, in which all nearby schools will be consolidated into one campus school.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 15^th, 2016.