ISLAMABAD - The Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) has finally conveyed various proposals to the Ministry of Capital Administration and Development (MCAD) to abolish the evening shift in 20 model colleges working under the directorate.
The officials of the directorate briefed the MCAD Secretary Shaigan Shareef Malik on Friday at a meeting on various under-consideration proposals to relieve the burden on the capital's packed model colleges. Currently, the model colleges have been running Classes from I to XII in the evening. If the proposals are given serious thought and implemented, nearly 16,000 students of the institutes studying in the evening would be benefitted.
The decision of abolition of the evening shifts was announced by the former Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani on November 8, 2010 on "Salam Teachers Day". The Auditor General of Pakistan has also in various reports highlighted that funds collected from the students in the evening shifts are against the rules.
It is pertinent to mention that for the evening shifts there are no budget allocations by the government and they are run on self-finance basis by collecting funds from the students.
The Secretary while talking to The Nation said despite the directives of the former Prime Minister the decision was not implemented. Now, we have been analysing various proposals to abolish the evening classes and for this another such meeting is scheduled on Wednesday next.
One of the proposals is to utilise the under-utilised buildings and infrastructure of the federal set-up schools by shifting the model students to the FG institutes. The students and teachers who meet the qualification criteria would be merged with the model set-up. According to officials, it is the most immediately implementable and feasible proposal as establishing new buildings and infrastructure is a long term and expensive solution but by utilising the federal set-up institutes would  benefit both the set-ups as most of the federal set-up infrastructure remains under-utilised due to less enrolment.
Central Academic Staff Association (CASA) of model colleges has welcomed the abolition of evening shift in model colleges, as it has been a longstanding demand of the teaching community.
CASA President Professor Rasheed Khan opined that under-enrolled or having enrolment only in tens of the students of the FG set-up institutions be handed over to model colleges. But this handing-over should essentially carry administrative control under the model set-up faculty and staff as FG set-up faculty can't teach model set-up syllabi and workload. It must also require cooperation of the FG staff association, FDE and government of Pakistan.
He hoped increase in enrolment in just a single academic session in those FG institutions which are nearly vacant these days. In this proposed scheme of things evening staff of model colleges set-up along with students be transferred to nearly vacant institutions and already present FG staff should be transferred to other under-staffed FG institutes. However, ministries of CAD and Finance should have to allocate requisite amount of mobilisation money for at least minimally furnish classrooms and science labs. This handing over shouldn't be revocable in future.