LAHORE, March 13: Punjab education budget’s use is unsteady, unpredictable and almost always less than the optimal. In the past two years, 11 per cent and 12 per cent of the allocated budget was not spent, says a researcher. Under-spending was equivalent to Rs17.78 billion and Rs23.21 billion in 2010-11 and 2011-12, respectively. In 2011-12, the unspent amount was more than twice the total spending of the federal government on primary and secondary education, Institute of Social and Policy Sciences (I-SAPS) Research Fellow Ahmad Ali said during his presentation on “Analysis of Punjab education budget and recommendations for the budget 2013-14” at a pre-budget policy dialogue organised by I-SAPS, the Society for Advancement of Education (SAHE) and the Department for International Development (DFID) at a hotel on Wednesday.

In the first five months of the current fiscal year, Ali said, the Punjab government spent only four per cent of the education development budget. He said the Punjab government had this year allocated a substantial budget for rehabilitation of flood-hit schools, but it did not release this amount.

Stating that Punjab’s non-salary budget had been reduced by about 50 per cent, Ali said that an amount of Rs13.60 billion was spent in 2011-12, while the government allocated only Rs6.86 billion for the current financial year. He said the pace of implementation of development schemes was very slow and added that only four per cent of the development budget was used in the first five months of the current financial year.

The I-SAPS research associate said the district education expenditure was skewed as only two districts -- Lahore and Faisalabad -- consumed nine per cent of the total education expenditure of Punjab.

He said the classification of the Punjab education budget was misleading and non-transparent for a number of reasons such as block allocations and placement of colleges and universities in the category of “others” instead of higher education. As a result, expenditure for a given sub-sector could not be accurately determined from the budget books.

Ali said the Punjab government had allocated Rs195.90 billion for education in 2012-13 and about 83 per cent of this allocation would be spent on recurrent expenses. Until November 2012, 35 per cent of this allocation had been spent. He urged public representatives to ensure increased allocations for flood-hit schools and their timely release for appropriate use.To improve access to educational facilities in urban areas, he called for allocating special finds for establishment of public schools in private housing schemes in every city. Similarly, he said, land be allotted for schools in newly established private housing schemes and this be made mandatory for registration of new housing schemes. He said high schools were receiving less attention in budget allocations.

Earlier, SAHE’s Muhammad Azhar gave a presentation on “Challenges of Quality Education”.

SAHE executive director Abbas Rashid said the issue of imparting quality education could more effectively be addressed by recruiting qualified teachers.

Awami National Party’s Amir Bahadur Khan Hoti said around one million Pakhtoons living in Punjab were denied computerised national identity cards. As a result, their children were being denied birth certificates and eventually admission to schools.

Punjab Assembly Standing Committee on Education member Aysha Javed, PPP MPA Ahsanul Haq Nolatia and Punjab school education department deputy secretary Qaiser Rashid also spoke.