LAHORE – Legislation is on the anvil to regulate working of the private educational institutions in the province, Minister for Education told the Punjab Assembly on Wednesday.
The Minister, Mujtaba Shujaur Rehman, told the house during the question-hour, which related to the Schools Education Punjab, that the enactment on the private schools will regulate job security of the teachers, fees structure, and right to admission of the deserving poor students in these institutions. He said through Education Commission matters related to private schools would be streamlined.
He also informed the house that the government was working on establishing a uniform education system.
“At present 90 per cent private schools from class to eighth have adopted the Punjab Government examination system while 70 per cent are using Punjab Text Book syllabus for upper classes”, the minister added. He said only five per cent schools had O and A level syllabus in the Punjab. He said after a few year, the province will have a totally uniform education system.
The session started 65-minute beyond the scheduled time with Speaker Rana Muhammad Iqbal, in the chair. Replying to a question of Rahila Khadim Hussain, the minister said out of total 5,602 private schools, 478 were still in the process of registration and those which failed to meet the set criterion for this purpose, would be not be allowed to operate.
To a question by Muhammad Naveed Anjum on the vacancies of teachers in 153 government schools being run through an NGO ‘CARE,’ the minister told the House that around 649 vacancies of teachers were lying in that schools which would be filled in through the 921 teachers being appointed in Punjab from April 2. To a question by Sheikh Allauddin on the absence of science laboratories in Kasur district, the minister admitted that they did not exist in 38 higher secondary schools in that district. The questioner was surprised to learn from the minister that three years had elapsed but rough cost estimate from the concerned departments for setting up laboratories had not been received when it was just a rough calculation of the cost. The minister, however, replied that in the next budget allocation was being made for setting up as many as 1,000 state-of-the-art science laboratories to provide for every school in the province.
To a question from Nighat Nasir Sheikh, the Education Minister said with $400million financial aid of the World Bank, the department had started Education Reform Project in July 2009 and with this amount as many as 1,482 schools had been upgraded, besides meeting the expenses of text books, teachers initiatives and Punjab Endowment Fund.
After the question-hour, two privilege motions from Sajida Mir and Riffat Dar were taken up following which Majida Zaidi pointed out the quorum which was found below the required number of 93 and the session was adjourned.