Govt to declare education emergency to boost literacy

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Tuesday that the federal government would declare an education emergency in the country and allocate all possible resources to educate the children from disadvantaged families.

Addressing a ceremony after inspecting the site for a Daanish School in the Kuri area of the federal capital, Sharif announced that the federal government would establish Daanish Schools in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan and remote areas of Balochistan and Sindh to promote quality education.

“This is not the fault of poor children if their parents cannot afford quality education despite working hard, or those who are orphans… If the iron gates of the Atchison College or Grammar School are obstructing their way [to quality education], the door of Daanish Schools are open for them,” he said.

To be established over 30 acres of land, the Daanish School will provide free education and accommodation to the children from the capital city and its suburbs with a vision to provide equal opportunity for quality education.

Calling the alarming figure of 26 million out-of-school children as “criminal negligence”, the prime minister said Quaid-i-Azam’s dream about Pakistan would remain unfulfilled without making arrangements for their education.

“There can be no bigger national service or the fulfilment of the responsibility than enrolling these out-of-school children,” he said and announced that the federal government would fully bear the expenses of constructing Daanish Schools in AJK, G-B, remote areas of Balochistan and Sindh.

Prime Minister Shehbaz also announced that the federal government would declare an education emergency in the country and would dole out all possible resources to educate children from disadvantaged families.

He told the gathering of federal ministers, bureaucrats, heads of international institutions, educationists and students that the Daanish Schools project was initiated under PML-N Quaid Nawaz Sharif’s vision and that the students were making an impact in debate, sports and other fields internationally.

Recounting the journey of the visionary project, the prime minister said they resisted the immense criticism of the initiative just to support the children from low-income groups with quality education at par with elite education institutions.

He also recalled that under Nawaz’s leadership, the PML-N government in the past gave away laptops to the students which became an earning tool for them. Besides, the then Punjab government also recruited around 200,000 teachers purely on merit.

The PM said the groundbreaking of Islamabad’s Daanish School would be performed soon and asked the education ministry to ensure its completion within 6-8 months. He also announced to personally inaugurate the Daanish Schools to be established in AJK, GB and Balochistan.

In his address, Minister for Federal Education and Professional Training Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui lauded the vision behind Daanish Schools and said the scope of the project was being expanded to other parts of the country.

He requested the prime minister to declare an education emergency to address the challenges and shortcomings in the education sector and that every vacant building should be used for teaching purposes.

Comparing the ageing nations of the US, Japan and Germany, he said Pakistan was rich with youth bulge and the government should utilise its resources to skill train them to make them employable in the international market.