Minister says children with special needs will be enrolled in regular schools. PHOTO: ONLINE/FILE
The park is situated near the Islamia University Bahawalpur’s old campus. Manais said an estimated Rs10 million had been spent on building it.
Bahawalpur DCO Ehtisham Anwar, Community Development EDO Aftab Pirzada, Union Council Chairman Bilal Balouch, Special Education District Officer Shazi Hashmat and teachers and students of special schools attended the inauguration.
Manais said that the government was taking measures to ensure provision of education and skills to differently-abled children so they could contribute to the economy.
He said the park had been established under an inclusive education project under which differently-abled children would study in regular schools. He said they believed this initiative would instil confidence in them and help them assimilate well.
He said the Special Education Department had started working on a pilot project in this regard and had started it in Bahawalpur and Muzaffargarh districts first. “We will expand it to 11 other districts if it proves successful,” he said.
The minister said for differently-abled students who lived at a considerable distance away from school, they had introduced education vouchers under the Punjab Education Foundation’s Voucher Scheme.
He said the quota for handicapped persons in government jobs had been raised from 2 per cent to 3 per cent. Separate campuses were being constructed for students with hearing and speech impairments, said Manais.
He said the park, made specifically for children with special needs, was a step in the right direction. “The challenge for the district administration, now, is to ensure that its beauty is maintained.”
Encourage the private sector
Parks and Horticulture Authority Director General Ehtisham Anwar Mahar, who is also the DCO, visited the park for special children on Thursday and suggested that the government approach the private sector to help maintain various parks in the city.
“We have much to gain from public-private partnerships in our attempts to beautify Bahawalpur,” Mahar said.
He said national, multinational, local companies, private institutions and philanthropists should be approached with the request to play an active role to accelerate the pace of beautifying parks in the city.
He told the Parks and Horticulture Authority admin director to focus his energy on interacting with philanthropic institutions and to get engage them in various on-going projects. “The idea is to create ownership of private-public engagement and make the city green, shady and attractive.”
The director general said there ought to be a legal agreement with all the interested private sector individuals and institutions in this regard. Parks, medians, green belts and triangular parks, which have been designated for this project by the Parks and Horticulture Authority director general include: Shahdara Park Model Town B, Madere Millat Park Commercial Area Satellite Town, Kashmir Park near GPO, Lachi Peer Park Model Town C, and a triangular plot opposite Dubai Chowk. Similarly a number of green belts and roads have been included in the public-private endeavour project: Circular Road, Farid Gate to Chowk Fowara, Fowara Chowk to Milad Chowk, Milad Chowk to Seraiki Chowk, Seraiki Chowk to Welcome Chowk, Welcome Chowk to Railway Station, Seraiki Chowk to Kalma Chowk to Fateh Chowk, Fowara Chowk to Dubai Chowk, Dubai Chowk to Daewoo Terminal, DC Chowk to Saddar Puli, Saddar Pully to One Unit Chowk, One Unit Chowk to Technology College Chowk, Library Chowk to Kali Puli and outer walls of Bahawalpur Zoo.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 27th, 2016.
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