LAHORE - The public sector educational institutions of Punjab have enrolled around 44 per cent students who passed the matriculation examination, while the remaining 56 per cent have only choice of getting admission in private institutions or to leave the study.
Statistics reveal that in the year 2010-11, 895,696 students (69 per cent) were appeared in the matriculation exams in all eight boards of intermediate and secondary education and among those 527,408 passed the exams.
Total 92,424 boy and 105,155 girl students enrolled in public sector colleges while 15,440 boy and 18,259 girl students enrolled in higher secondary schools in intermediate classes. Punjab has 950 public sector intermediate and degree colleges and higher secondary schools in the year 2010-11. Among these, the Punjab government owns 446 degree colleges (209 boys and 237 girls), 17 intermediate colleges (12 boys and 5 girls).
 The province has also 472 higher secondary schools (242 boys and 230 girls). Besides, there were 20 federal and 12 PAF colleges.
Now the number of colleges in the province has risen up to 481 that means the government has established 35 more colleges in two years. According to this ratio, now the public sector institutions have gained the capacity of 12,000 more students than the year 2010-11.
Educationists say that scarcity of sufficient public sector educational institutions is not only the reason behind selecting the private institutions, but the quality of education is another big reason for the students. Matters of discipline also force the parents to get their children enrolled in the private institutions, they say.
The government colleges charge a nominal fee that is around 12,000 per year as compared to private institutions that charge minimum 50,000 per year. Although, most of private institutions don’t have well educated teachers but they managed to attract majority of the students. The educationists are of the view that the government must act strictly for the enhancement of education system.
A former principal of a college said lecturers were not serious towards their duties as most of the students were not interested in attending their classes regularly. “If the public sector teachers are loyal towards their work, they can produce better result than that of the private institutes,” the principal added.