18th Amendment: NCHD and NEF will survive, get attached to new ministry

PM tells finance division to release funds for the two organisations.

ISLAMABAD:

About 31,000 people working under the National Commission of Human Development (NCHD) and the National Education Foundation (NEF) can breathe easy.

The administrative controls of the two institutes were formally given to the newly-created ministry of professional and technical training on Tuesday. Prime Minister (PM) Yousaf Raza Gilani approved the reallocation in a meeting at the PM House.

The prime minister directed officials of the new ministry to continue the program on non-formal education and mass literacy campaign that was started by the NCHD. He also directed finance ministry officials to release funds for these programs, officials said.

The NCHD and the NEF have been virtually non-functional after June 30, because both federal government and provinces did not allocate any funds to them. Except for Sindh, no other province was willing to adopt these programs following the devolution of education under the 18th Amendment.

After the devolution, the employees of these two organisations were not even getting salaries due to unavailability of funds. Following months-long protests, the employees of the NCHD and the NEF filed a petition with the Supreme Court, which directed the government on October 20 not to shelve the programs and hand their control over to a federal ministry.

The NEF has around 6,000,000 students in schools across the country and employs about 15,000 teachers, mostly in rural and backward areas. No fee is charged from students in the schools.

However, the quality of education in these schools has always been a prime concern for critics of the program, who say political appointments and rampant corruption in the administrative level of the program are undermining the goals of the project.

The NCHD employs about 16,000 people across the country and executes projects in health, education and skill development. It too has been under fire from critics due to political appointments.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 21^st, 2011.