KARACHI: While presenting Sindh’s education budget for the fiscal year 2020-21 on Wednesday, Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah said that the budget of education sector, in a macro perspective, had been increased to Rs244.5 billion when compared with Rs212.4bn for 2019-20.

“Despite resource constraints we have allocated funds which is 25.2 per cent of our current revenue budget,” he said.

He said that education was one of the key priority areas for the government of Sindh. “We aim at improving access to equitable, inclusive and quality education for all to realise their fullest potential and contribute to the development of society and economy, thus creating a sense of nationhood, inculcating values of tolerance, social justice and democracy in students,” he said.

He explained that in order to manage education-related functions in an efficient manner, enhance the quality of education and provide better facilities at educational institutions, the department of education was divided into two departments — the school education and literacy department (SELD) and the college education department (CED) back in 2016.

Budget for education sector has been increased to Rs244.5bn

“This bifurcation gave us an opportunity to micromanage the affairs with a better understanding of the needs and aspirations of stakeholders,” he said.

In the annual development programme (ADP) for FY 2020-21, the education sector has been allocated a total development budget of Rs21.1bn for 397 ongoing and 11 new, but unapproved schemes. An allocation of Rs3.1bn is provided under Foreign Projects Assistance (FPA) in addition to the provincial development budget resource allocation.

The SELD has been allocated Rs13.2bn for 265 ongoing schemes and four new schemes. Most of the schemes are for upgrading existing government schools from primary to secondary levels, rehabilitating and improving schools, providing furniture, basic and missing facilities, construction and reconstruction of existing dangerous school buildings.

The CED has been allocated Rs3.71bn in ADP 2020-21 for 67 ongoing and two new schemes.

Allocation for development priorities of universities and boards is Rs3.3bn for providing funds for the public sector universities for strengthening their educational infrastructure and for constructing new educational facilities.

The education sector, too, is divided into three broad categories — school education, college education and higher education (university and professional education).

Schools

It is explained that the government of Sindh provides funds for school education from its limited resources.

Moreover, international donors also chip in with their share towards improving the quality of education in Sindh. The provincial government has adopted various key indicators for need assessments and performance evaluation of schools to help understand the needs and accordingly assign resources where needed. For FY 2020-21, Rs1bn has been allocated as grant in aid for Education Management Organization (EMO) for handing over management of various schools to EMOs.

“Moreover, we have allocated Rs6.6 billion for purchase of furniture and fixture, Rs6.1 billion for new activities with the help of international donor agencies, Rs2.3 billion for free textbooks, Rs1.8 billion for school management committee to meet the requirements of schools, Rs5 billion for repair and maintenance of school buildings, Rs480 million for an Emergent Need Fund for meeting new initiatives under Covid-19 and Rs663.4 million for educational assets of proscribed organisations of Sindh taken over by the government of Sindh,” the chief minister said.

In school education, about the achievements in FY 2019-20, he said that they had profiled schools, provided essential facilities to 1,606 primary, elementary and high schools in 29 districts, carried out groundwork for making 15 English medium and six comprehensive schools operational under the PPP mode through EMOs.

In the next academic year, 10 more English medium and nine comprehensive high schools in nine districts are also going to be ungraded with all facilities of science/IT labs, libraries, etc. Also, there are plans for establishing 2,000 new early childhood care and education classrooms, training 2,500 early childhood education teachers and printing Rs4.93m sets of textbooks for all schools at taluka and district levels.

“In the next financial year 2020-21 we have set a number of targets under which we will provide requisite infrastructure, solar system, IT/science labs and auditoriums in 35 existing schools,” he added.

He also said that in the current FY 2019-20, Rs9.5bn was allocated for the Sindh Education Foundation (SEF) and that there has been no change in that amount.

Colleges

There are a total of 146 boys’ colleges, 131 girls’ colleges and 50 co-education colleges in Sindh running under the administration of the college education department, whereas the total student enrolment is 436,980.

In order to manage college education in a Covid-19 perspective, the college education department is planning to launch a programme of distance learning by establishing computer labs, centralised teaching and utilising web services. For enhancing technology-based interventions in the college education department, Rs451m has been allocated in FY 2020-21.

Moreover, Rs300m has been allocated as Endowment Fund for NED University of Engineering and Technology Karachi and Rs30m is kept as grant-in-aid for the Government College for Information Technology Guru Nagar, Hyderabad.

Universities and boards

In the current FY 2019-20, sufficient funds were disbursed to public-sector universities as grant-in-aid. Education boards were also provided funds to pay examination fee, which was required to be paid by students earlier. The establishment of the Benazir Bhutto Chair at Shah Abdul Latif University Khairpur is expected to be completed in FY 2020-21.

In FY 2020-21 the allocation of Rs5bn is proposed for grant to universities, Rs2bn to educational boards and Rs1.2bn for scholarship to position holders/A1 graders in Sindh. Besides Rs392m is allocated for various cadet colleges while Rs259m is for various public schools. A further Rs50m is proposed for performance incentive under ‘Programme for Results’.

Published in Dawn, June 18th, 2020