LAHORE, Dec 18: The Punjab Assembly met for just 28 minutes in its fourth sitting of the 43rd session here on Tuesday as attendance of the members remained thin.

Only four MPAs were present when the house proceedings started around two hours late of its scheduled time of 10am.

As the quorum problem persisted in the house, in a rare move a treasury member, Shagufta Sheikh, pointed it out, making Speaker Rana Muhammad Iqbal adjourn the proceedings for Wednesday morning.

This abrupt adjournment left pending some resolutions of members which included the one against Israeli attack on Gaza and another pertaining to interest-based economic system in the country.

Before the adjournment, the house had taken up two out of 34 written questions regarding the school education.

Responding to a query, Education Minister Mujtaba Shujaur Rehman assured the MPAs that the government would get back the schools given to certain NGOs in 2007 if the performance of these institutes was found poor.

The term of the agreement signed with Care, Agahi and some other NGOs which had adopted some state-run schools was ending shortly, he told the house.

The minister denied there was any complaint against the 18 schools given under the control of Care and that the NGO was linked to PML-N MNA Pervaiz Malik’s wife in any way. He added the syllabus prescribed by the government was being taught at these institutions and that action would be taken if any of these NGOs flouted the rules set by the education department.

About the schools being run by the Punjab Education Foundation, he said the government had enhanced the PEF budget to Rs6.5 billion as the number of students studying in these institutes had also increased to 1.2 million.