ISLAMABAD: Education Minister Rana Tanveer Hussain was in an awkward situation in the National Assembly (NA) on Friday, when members bombarded him with questions regarding effectiveness, transparency, funding and rationale behind various initiatives including tele-schools and schools-on-wheels projects.

During the question and hour session, the minister acknowledged that the government could not provide required infrastructure for promoting education and that was why he had also been focusing on distance learning and tele-schools. He said Pakistan had 23 million out-of-school children, which was unfortunately the highest figure in the world.

The minister said in the capital, there were 70,000 out-of-school children, claiming he would bring all these students to schools. He also said he had been focusing on bringing improvement in the quality of education as well, adding that his initiative of schools on wheels was meant for pre-school children and buses had been catering the need of education of students in rural areas of Islamabad.

He said there was no involvement of government funding in this project, adding that the Word Bank had assured him of providing 30 buses for the purpose.

Says initiative aims to focus on giving access to education to pre-school children

Mr Hussain said the World Bank was also planning to launch such buses in African countries.

The minister was speaking, in response to a question asked by Member of National Assembly (MNA) Tahira Aurangzeb, about the steps being taken by the present government to increase literacy rate in the country.

He said during the last nine months, because of various initiatives, the literacy rate had increased by 0.8pc.

PML-N MNA Shaista Pervaiz said she had heard about mobile hospitals but surprisingly, now there was talk about mobile education. She said provision of education required a proper system, adding that education standards in the country were known to everyone.

She demanded complete details of funding, details of teachers and students, who are getting benefit from the initiative. The lawmaker said that education ministry was facing shortage of infrastructure and mosques could be utilised for the purpose of education.

The MNA said that if mosques are used, then there will be no need of such “facade school on wheels projects”.

Meanwhile, MNA Sheikh Rohale Asghar asked the minister to provide complete details of fully funded and half funded scholarships provided by Higher Education Commission (HEC) during the last five years. He said that allegedly, children of bureaucrats and those who sit in “darbars” were the main beneficiaries of these scholarships.

His question was also supported by MNA Noor Alam Khan, who said that being chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), he had raised his voice about this issue and sought details of scholarships of HEC.

Earlier, MNA Saira Bano had sought details of vehicles available in the ministry and its attached departments and details of expenditure on fuel. The education ministry, through a written reply, had provided her the required information.

After detailed discussion on education, MNA Mahmood Bashir Virk, who was chairing the session in the absence of speaker and deputy speaker, referred the questions to the Standing Committee on Education for detailed discussion adding that chairman of PAC Noor Alam Khan should also be invited for standing committee meeting.

Published in Dawn, April 29th, 2023