Destitute children: Over 5 million school dropouts re-enrolled: Baligh

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Education and Professional Training Engineer Muhammad Baligh-ur-Rehman has said around five million children had been enrolled in schools over the last five years who had dropped out because of financial constraints.

“The school expenses of these out of school children from class one to 12th are being borne by the government with the objective of not leaving a single child unattended,” the minister said while talking to APP on Sunday.

He said: “Our effort was highly acknowledged by international educational organisations and they were happy on the programme under which a record number of children in history of Pakistan have been admitted in schools during a short span of time.”

The government, he said, was pumping more and more funds into education sector to increase the literacy rate and for the provision of quality education.

He added the federal and provincial governments had spent more than Rs4, 200 billion during last five years for the promotion of education while budget for higher education sector had also been increased from Rs40 billion to Rs107 billion during the same period.

He said the federal government had increased its budgetary allocation for educational sector from Rs500 billion to Rs900 billion during last five years and the number was increasing steadily every year, he remarked.

To a question, he said “Pakistan has hired the services of an international institution TIMS for the assessment of education sector in the country, adding that it will start its work by next year with cooperation of national institutions.”

The funds have been allocated to the TIMS in this regard and the training to locals by TIMS experts had been provided to conduct assessment, he remarked.

Lauding the Prime Minister Laptop Scheme, the minister informed APP that Pakistan has become among top five countries across the world which is providing E-Learning education to students. He particularly mentioned that according to QS World University Ranking, around ten Pakistani universities have been placed in top 300 universities of Asia, adding that this number is increasing annually.

The minister said currently Pakistan has only 26 per cent PhDs while it needs further 40 percent under Vision-2025 and the target would be gained through Pak-US Knowledge Corridor.

Replying to a question about the appointment of new Higher Education Commission (HEC) Chairperson, Baligh ur Rahman said around 100 applications have been submitted against the post.

He assured that the new chairperson would be hired purely on merit through transparent selection process under the committee established by the prime minister.

To another question that whether the present chairperson would be awarded extension, the minister replied “Present HEC Chairperson Dr Mukhtar had worked professionally and it is now up to the committee to extend his tenure or select any other who is more professional than him.”

Elaborating the role of federal and provincial HECs especially after the 18th amendment, the minister said: “The prime minister and chief ministers in a meeting had forged consensus about the powers of federal and provincial HECs.”

He emphasized on the Quran education in schools, and said that as a pilot project the compulsory Quran education has been implemented in only a few public sector schools of Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), while it would be made compulsory in all schools by next year.

The federal government has launched a programme under which the teachers and heads of the schools across the country were being provided professional teaching skills and training, which produced positive results, he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 2^nd, 2018.