LAHORE: Punjab Minister for School Education Murad Raas says digitisation of public sector educational institutes is the only way to compete with the private sector.

“This is a costly investment, both financially and in terms of time and effort. But the fastest returns are the most important with improvements in education quality and student satisfaction.”

Speaking to Dawn about new initiatives in public sector school education on Friday, he said a data bank was established to collect digital data of students, teachers, schools, total admissions, enrollment, retention and teacher’s service record, promotion and retirement. “E-transfer posting has been launched to end corruption and around 70,000 teachers have been facilitated under it,” he said.

He said all information related to schoolchildren, facilities and teachers’ promotions or ACRs would be available through one click and there would be transparency in the education system.

Mr Raas said the new schools could not be built owing to shortage of funds and time. “We have launched the Insaaf Afternoon School project. In the first phase more than 7,008 primary schools were upgraded as elementary schools in afternoon hours and around 170,000 children were enrolled. In the second phase, the elementary schools will be upgraded as secondary schools.”

He said the department had successfully implemented the Single National Curriculum for grade I till V across Punjab. The curriculum and rules were developed and “Compulsory Teaching of the Holy Quran ‘’ as a separate subject for Grade I-XII, ‘Naazrah Quran for Grades I-V’ and ‘Translation of Holy Quran for Grade VI-XII’ were introduced. “Trainings of 72,000 MA Arabic and Islamiat teachers was conducted to teach Quran as a compulsory subject in schools across the province,” he said.

He said an afternoon meal program was started in 100 primary schools of Lahore under the public-private partnership and it would be extended to whole of province. “We require Rs1.5 million annually to run a one time meal program at a school and will need Rs40 billion budget to run the meal program in all primary schools,” he said.

He said the meal programme was bearing results and 33 per cent attendance had been increased and 77 per cent students’ health improved and retention of the students had increased to 98 per cent in all the schools where they were providing meals.

The minister said 2,033 additional classrooms were constructed, 1,035 Science and IT Labs and 400 libraries were established in 110 model schools in 14 districts of the province. He said around 100,000 teachers were given training for their capacity building and improving quality of education.

He said first transgender school opened in Multan to extend the constitutional right to one of the most marginalised communities of society and the project was going to be scaled up at the level of divisional headquarters.

About missing facilities including clean drinking water in schools and washrooms in schools in remote districts of the province, Mr Raas said the clean drinking water project was under consideration. He said the department had already demolished all the dangerous school buildings and were working to construct new buildings with all facilities.

He said the work on the Private Schools Act was completed and would be presented before the cabinet and assembly soon. “All the private schools will have to register everything and these schools will have to follow the law,” he said.

Replying to a question about implementation of minimum wages in private schools, he said around 75 per cent of the private schools in the province were charging less than Rs5,000 fee and lacked facilities including grounds, labs and libraries.

As for the shortage of the school staff, the minister said hundreds of teachers retired from the service every year and the government would start the process of recruiting 15,000 to 30,000 teachers every year.

Published in Dawn, February 20th, 2022