Five-year sector plan devised to improve schools in Sindh

LARKANA:Sindh Education Secretary Qazi Shahid Pervaiz has said that the five-year sector plan had been prepared to improve schools in the province.

“No child will now remain out of school for which non-formal education system with the assistance of community based organisations is being reintroduced,” he said while talking to newsmen in Larkana on Tuesday. He said during the five-year sector plan all primary schools would be upgraded and converted into elementary schools for which a grant of 50 million Euros from European Union and 24 million dollars from Global Partnership for Education had been received.

He said: “We will execute this plan soon from 300 those schools which lack classrooms and other required facilities which will be completed at the very outset and then other broken schools will be taken up.” He said it had been decided that every school should have six classrooms, one room for teachers, boundary wall, toilet, drinking water and solar system facility.

He said system of 100% enrollment would be ensured in those schools in the new non-formal education system and all out of school children would be brought to schools and no child would be left out. Qazi said that they were launching community based organisation system without the help of teachers under which children would also be provided technical education and they would also be given food and other essential facilities so that they could be attracted to schools.

He said management cost per child would be provided to such organizations who would run them where five-year course would be completed in three years. The education secretary said Sindh government was heading towards introducing Finland education system. He said 50 young men of Karachi would be given free B-Ed education for which an agreement had been made with Zindagi Trust of Shahzad Roy and they would be taught University of Finland, Helsinki, course will be imparted.

He said according to agreement, Rs 50 crore would be given to Zindagi Trust in five years but Shahzad Roy had declined to get the payment. He said Roy had said that this mount be kept in a new Trust of education department for future use for betterment of education. He said similar agreement had also been made with Karachi University from where 200 BEd graduates would come out annually. He said Finland syllabus would also be introduced in future in all 29 teachers training institutes of the province.

He said Finland University delegation consisting of senior teachers / trainers is visiting Karachi these days. He said 15000 new teachers would be recruited during next financial year which would greatly fill the requirement of teachers’ vacancies. He said there was no program to regularize the services of BPS-17 headmasters, but their contract would be extended for another year for which a summary had been sent to Sindh Chief Minister. He said services of IBA test pass teachers had been regularized and now it was the turn of Sindh University test pass teachers who were appointed in 2010 for which work was underway.