Mahmood concedes government schools fail to provide quality education

Dodges protest by unpaid FDE bus drivers, conductors

ISLAMABAD: Public schools have failed to provide quality education but now all public sector schools in the capital would be transformed into model schools gradually.

This was stated by Federal Education Minister Shafqat Mahmood on Thursday while addressing a ceremony to inaugurate a school-based eye screening organized in partnership with SightSavers at the Islamabad Model Schools for Girls (IMCG) on Thursday.

The federal minister conceded that he was unaware of the difficulties faced by differently-abled children until he went to a programme arranged for them a few months ago.

He added that no job was easy.

The minister stressed the need for devising a comprehensive, joint strategy by the education and health ministries to ensure the provision of health facilities to school children.

In this regard, he announced that the government will soon introduce a programme on the health of the children in the federal capital.

The programme, he said, will be monitored by the government.

He further said that they endeavour to develop such an education system in the country where parents prefer to admit their children instead of the private sector.

Dilating on the eye screening, he said that it was part of a programme where some two million children and 10,000 teachers will be scanned.

Those children who are found to have weak eyesight will be provided with spectacles, he added. He also stressed that this programme will continue on a regular basis, unlike some other projects which are time bound.

Dodging unpaid drivers

As Mahmood left the school, drivers and conductors of buses operating under the Prime Minister Educational Reforms programme in the federal capital, surrounded him.

However, he managed to dodge them.

As the protesters saw Mahmood leave the college, they called out loudly that they had not been unpaid for the past 17 months and with Ramazan approaching, they were facing extreme financial difficulties.

The minister, however, remained unmoved. He avoided the gathered media and silently sat in his car and left.

Noticing the callousness of the minister, the protesters started chanting slogans against him and the government.

The transporters have been staging protests for a week at different spots in the federal capital, including in front of the Federal Directorate of Education and the Islamabad Press Club.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 3^rd, 2019.