Special Secretary Education Mohyuddin Ahmad Wani and Deputy Commissioner Islamabad Irfan Nawaz Memon on Monday visited several schools of Islamabad where renovation work is in progress and directed the contractor to expedite the work.

The ministry of education had launched a mega project to give a facelift to 167 schools and colleges besides providing missing facilities and construction of information technology labs.

The work is in progress as the education ministry is focusing on first batch of 21 schools where besides providing missing facilities, vibrant colours are being painted to make the schools attractive.

The special secretary and DC Islamabad visited several schools and it was decided that district administration and Capital Development Authority (CDA) will help the education ministry for tree plantation and kitchen gardening projects in Islamabad.

It was also decided that the Islamabad administration will extend its help to remove encroachments outside of schools and colleges.

“The day I joined as special secretary, I was given special task by Federal Secretary Waseem Ajmal Chaudhry to focus on overhauling and renovation work in schools. On his direction, I have been visiting schools and monitoring the ongoing work. We have decided to get the work completed in batches,” the special secretary told Dawn.

He said that after completion of this project, the Islamabad’s public sector schools will be role model as special focus is being paid for improve learning environment. “You will see, there will be real change,” he said and added that besides IT labs, arts and math labs are also being setup in 10 schools. Whereas, schools children are also being provided chess and scrabbles material. Asked about Monday’s visit, he said that during the visit, DC extended his full help to make Islamabad’s education sector exemplary.

The said project was launched in 2021 and initially it’s total cost was Rs6.5billion, later in revised PC-I, its cost reached up to Rs7.4billion.

During the PDM government, Rs2 billion were earmarked for this project and out so far around Rs900million had been released.

The project called ‘Provision of Basic Educational Facilities in Educational Institutions of ICT’ according to its working paper, had been prepared keeping in view the fact that Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) had mostly retained educational institutions handed over to it by the government of Punjab in 1973 and 1985. Officials in the FDE said a substantial portion of these buildings is in a dilapidated condition requiring rehabilitation.

The annual repair and maintenance of the buildings is a recurring feature of the civil work, there are no funds allocated to schools/colleges to maintain their physical infrastructure. It is only the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) which meets the infrastructural needs of institutions be it rehabilitation of existing facilities or construction of new structures.

The scope of work in PC-I includes rehabilitation of the existing infrastructure in 170 institutions and five area education offices, construction of 507 classrooms, 148 toilet blocks, 14 bathrooms, two visitor rooms, three receptions, 17 servant quarters, 32 guardrooms, 17 staff rooms, 97 staircases, one workshop, 20 canteens, 39 laboratories, 17 libraries, 26 mumties, 18 computer labs, five admin blocks, four conference rooms, six bus sheds, two common rooms, three auditoriums, four offices, seven principal offices, 13 clerk rooms and three water tanks.

Under the project, solar power system would also be installed in 170 schools to lower the expenditure on electricity.

Earlier, under PM reforms package launched by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, 200 schools and colleges were given a face-lift and now under the said project the remaining 167 will also get a facelift.

Published in Dawn, February 6th, 2024