Shehbaz Sharif boasts of quality education, increased enrolment

Says School Reforms Programme is producing results

LAHORE: Punjab Chief Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif presided over a three-hour meeting to review progress on the School Reforms Roadmap Programme.

Addressing the meeting, the CM said reforms in the education system, introduced by the Punjab government, were producing positive results and the provincial government had made great progress in achieving targets. He said education standards had improved due to introduction of IT. Shehbaz continued that the Punjab government outsourced 4,300 schools under the private-public partnership and the enrolment of students and quality of education had increased in these institutions.

He said the model of public-private partnership would be further extended and standardised education was the right of every child. The CM added the implementation of the roadmap of school reforms would be ensured with continuity.

He said enrolment from private schools to public schools had increased to 33%, while the percentage of retention was up by 57%. The CM said more hard work was needed to achieve the enrolment target.

He said merit was being ensured at all costs in every project of the provincial government and thousands of teachers had been recruited purely on that basis. He said the Punjab Education Endowment Fund is a “great project” and over 200,000 deserving students benefited from it. He added it was the biggest project of its kind in South Asia.

The CM said the Punjab government had distributed education scholarships worth Rs12 billion rupees and students benefitting from this project would increase to 350,000 by the end of the year.

He said girl students from less-developed districts of the province were getting scholarships from the Zewar-e-Taleem Project and more vouchers under the scheme would be distributed by 2018. Shehbaz said the project would change the education scenario in the province. “We should work as a team to achieve targets of the roadmap reforms.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 8^th, 2017.