Community ownership: Parents, teachers trained to monitor development work at schools

Govt engages engineers to teach locals in checking quality of work and utilising funds

PESHAWAR: The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government has trained parents and teachers in handling the funds they get for refurbishing government schools.

The measure has been taken to involve communities in running state-owned schools which offer free education, books, stationary, uniforms and even shoes to the students.

It is hoped that parents will be able to better direct use of these funds in order of priority.

The recent upsurge in government funding for schools to provide basic facilities has also called for involving parents as independent monitors to ensure money is spent on school essentials.

In order to increase public ownership and participation in schools affairs, K-P Elementary and Secondary Education Department (K-PESED) has trained 25,000 parent-teachers’ councils (PTCs) on engineering.

For this purpose, K-PESED signed an agreement with an engineering firm to provide engineering support and monitoring to PTCs in the implementation of conditional grant programme for the provision of missing facilities and fulfil the needs of schools across the province.

K-PESED official Najiullah Khattak explained that to empower local communities, a series of orientation sessions will be conducted for PTCs on the quality of construction by using construction guidelines which have been uploaded on the K-PESED website.

He said that PTCs will also be trained on procurement and the use of quality construction materials in accordance with the approved designs and specifications. This will further ensure that the facility is constructed in accordance with engineering standards and as per the approved designs. 

Published in The Express Tribune, January 12^th, 2018.