Prioritising literacy: Education budget to be more than doubled, says secretary

Schools education secretary says 500 political leaders and officers have begun delivering lectures at schools.

MULTAN:

“Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has increased the budget for education from Rs100 billion to Rs248 billion,” said Schools Education Secretary Abdul Jabbar Shaheen on Monday.

He was addressing a seminar at the Centre of Excellence Boys High School in Dera Ghazi Khan.

He said the government was cognizant of the importance of education and had prioritised it. He said this was why the budget for school education had been increased from Rs100 billion to Rs248.

Shaheen said following the chief minister’s directives, more than 500 political leaders and bureaucratic officers had begun delivering lectures at academic institutions.

He said this was a positive trend and would motivate students and teachers.

Shaheen said the chief minister had ordered assistant education officers in each district to reward teachers with outstanding performance with promotions and cash prizes. The secretary said education officers should identify schools performing poorly and deliver lectures there twice or thrice a week.

He said 1,000 assistant education officers would be hired across the province. He said each assistant education officer would monitor 20 schools. He said they should also give their recommendations to the government so that policies could be devised to improve standard of education across the province. Later, the secretary visited the primary school in Shakoorabad where a classroom’s roof had collapsed last week.

DCO Nadeemur Rehman informed him that the school activities had been moved to a rented building temporarily. He said families of the injured children had been provided financial assistance. He said the government taken care of medical  He said the district government would construct four-room double-storey buildings in schools in a state of disrepair. The secretary said it was tragic that the literacy level was dwindling.

“We can only revive the education sector by motivating teachers,” he said. He said he was visiting primary schools and lecturing students and distributing course books.

Education EDO Muhammad Saleem Khan said no stone would be left unturned to improve quality of education.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 28^th, 2015.