Mahmood says education sector is one of the top priorities of his govt
PESHAWAR
Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Mahmood Khan and Provincial Education Minister, Shahram Khan Tarakai on Friday inaugurated a mega project of provision of furniture to students of public sector schools across the province.
Talking to the newspersons on the occasion Shahram Tarakai said with an estimated cost of Rs 6 billion, school furniture was being provided to 2.4 million male and female students across the province. Provision of needed furniture to the students was our aim that would be achieved under the vision of Prime Minister Imran Khan.
In the transformed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, now every student would have a chair to sit on, Shahram said adding that in the first phase 1.2 million students would be provided new furniture with an estimated cost of Rs 3 billion while in the second phase the same number of students would be provided furniture costing Rs 3 billion.
With this revolutionary step, he said the culture of students sitting on mats (taat) would be eliminated from the province. The Education Department has achieved some notable feats during the last three years as second shift classes have been started to accommodate and enroll out of school children.
In the first phase, he said the second shift classes have been started in 1200 schools of the province accommodating nearly 3000 students. He said for the second phase 230 schools have been selected to start the second shift adding very soon the second phase would also get started in these schools.
The KP Education Minister said we helped the students to get rid of heavy school bags by introducing the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa School Bag Act. Besides, he said following the vision of Prime Minister Imran Khan, one million saplings were planted in 4000 schools under the Clean and Green Pakistan campaign.
To facilitate our students, the minister said Students Facilitation Centers were established at all the educational boards which were providing all needed information to the students under one roof.
To streamline the affairs of transfers and postings in the Education Department we introduced an e-transfer policy under which all the transfers and postings were now taking place online and in a fair and transparent manner.
For the current year, he said a target of enrolling 0.8million students was set, however we surpassed this figure by enrolling 965000 students in our schools which was a big achievement for us. To ensure transparency in examinations, the minister said CCTV monitoring systems were adopted at examination halls. We provided SNC books from grade-1 to grade-5 students, the minister said and added that in the second phase students from grade-6 to 12 would be provided books.
Shahram said to provide recreational facilities to the students, KP Cricket League under-16 was introduced at schools in which 300 teams comprising 4000 students would take part in practice sessions. 585 matches would be played under the league in one month, he said.
The minister continued that we were going to introduce a Smart School Education Program in public sector schools and MOUs with 87 institutions have been signed to materialize this objective. Under the Girls Community Schools Program, he said 100000 students have been enrolled in 3500 schools. At these schools, he said 80 percent students were girls with 99 percent female teaching staff.
He said the Text Book Board has been completely digitalized while all the text books were also being digitalized to ensure its availability on websites adding now everyone would be able to access a book online. To further improve quality of education, the School Leader Program was also introduced under which 2500 school leaders would be appointed in grade-16 while 190 would be inducted in grade-17.
To appoint teaching staff through PTC, he said collection of data of the applicants has been started adding in first phase 700 teachers while in the second phase 1400 teachers would be inducted.
The Minister informed that under Girls’ Stipend Program, scholarships amounting to Rs 2.3 billion have been distributed among the girl students. The aim of the program was to encourage female education and minimize the dropout trend. The intelligent students were being provided scholarships on merit.
Under “Stoori da Pakhtunkhwa” program, position holder students of every educational board were being provided scholarship from Rs 60000 to Rs 300000. He said we were working on elimination of wrong postings in education sector and now every teacher would be posted on right position. A new department DPD has also been formed for the capacity building of the teaching staff.
The minister informed that Rehmatul lil Alameen (Peace Be Upon Him) scholarship program was being started at all public sector schools across the province; a new program with the name of “Talent In A School” would also be started soon.
