Rs239b outlay proposed for education in Sindh

Almost Rs194 billion has been set aside for school education

KARACHI: The provincial government has earmarked a total of Rs239.041 billion as development and non-development budget for school, college education and higher education in its 2019-20 budget.

The school education department would receive Rs193.768 billion, the college education department would get Rs22.094 billion, the universities and boards department would get Rs10.585 billion on account of non-development expenditure and Rs3 billion as development funds, while Rs9.597 billion have been reserved for schools run under public-private partnership schemes administered by the Sindh Education Foundation.

Friday's budget session also saw allocations of Rs178.618 billion as non-development funds for school education - up Rs7.786 billion from the previous year's Rs170.832 billion - and Rs15.5 billion earmarked as development funds for the construction of new classrooms, provision of drinking water, washrooms, boundary walls, and transport facilities for school students.

In addition, the government has also set aside special funds for the directorate of literacy and non-formal education with the purpose of educating out-of-school children aged between 5 and 16. Similarly, a project aimed at the construction of 1,500 new classrooms for early childhood education has been proposed. The provincial government has claimed that government schools in Sindh already has 1,500 operational classes for early childhood education while the new budget has reserved funds for drinking water facility for 2390 government schools. Likewise, Rs15.15 billion has been earmarked as development funds for renovation and refurbishment of 113 government schools reported having very high enrolment.

Local govts to get Rs74.5b in new fiscal in Sindh

In addition to 188 old schemes, the development budget has also included funds for 91 new schemes. In the same manner, Rs9.597 billion has been specially earmarked for schools operating under the Sindh Education Foundation through the public-private partnership programme. Furthermore, an increase of Rs2.317 billion has been made in the non-development budget for college education, after which the non-development budget has reached Rs18.094 billion from the previous year's Rs15.77 billion. The development budget for college education was set at Rs4 billion, which would be utilised for construction of 17 new colleges in Sindh - including Karachi - while several schemes have been started for provision of furniture in 250 pre-existing government colleges. The new colleges will be established in Korangi, Malir, and West districts of Karachi, along with Hyderabad, Umerkot, Sukkur, Jamshoro, Jacobabad, and Sanghar.

The provincial government has appropriated Rs10.585 billion in the next year's fiscal budget for the universities and boards department. The non-development budget for universities and boards, which stood at Rs9.529 billion in the previous budget, was increased by Rs1.056 billion.

The fund will be utilised for payment of cash awards to students who secure A-1 grade in all matric and intermediate board examinations in the province.

Meanwhile, a separate allocation of Rs3 billion has been made on account of the development of public universities in Sindh. The fund will be used for the development of the Centre of Excellence for Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Blockchain at IBA Sukkur. In addition, a campus of NED University will be set up in Tharparkar under the name Thar Institute of Technology, while Sindh University campuses will be established in Badin and Mirpur Khas.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 15^th, 2019.