ISLAMABAD, June 15: A civil society organisation has criticised the government for reducing allocations for development projects under the Education Division in the finance bill 2008-09 and giving less importance to gender-related aspects.

The federal budget presented in parliament for approval includes an allocation of Rs6.3 billions for development projects to be implemented by the ED compared to Rs6.5 billions earmarked in the previous budget.

“So instead of going up, the allocations have actually gone down considerably, especially if the impact of inflation is to be taken into account,” says the Centre for Peace and Development Initiatives (CPDI).

The Education Division would be working on the establishment of 42 colleges or institutions in the next fiscal year. Out of these, only eight are meant for girls/women. Total amount to be spent on these eight institutions is only Rs250 millions. Six of these institutions will be established in Islamabad, while the remaining will include a girls inter-college in Kohlu and a polytechnic institute in Turbat.

The CPDI said another worrying fact was that the ED remained obsessed with establishment of cadet colleges which were all meant for boys.

Twenty-five cadet colleges are included in the list of development projects to be implemented in the next financial year. The government has allocated Rs910 million for these projects which is significantly higher than the Rs772 million allocated for cadet colleges in 2007-08.

This allocation may further go up during the year if the government decided to provide funds for six cadet colleges which are currently listed in the budget document but without any allocation.

All the cadet college projects included in the budget are continuing from the previous years. The only exception is the allocation for a new cadet college in Multan which indicates that the new government also considers establishment of cadet colleges an appropriate and efficient way of promoting “Education for All.”

Total allocation for this new cadet college in 2008-09 is Rs50 million. It may be noted that the total cost of establishing one cadet college is between Rs200 million to Rs500 millions, while main beneficiaries of these are people belonging to middle and upper middle classes and not really the poor who must be the clear focus of project of the Education Division.

The CPDI says the new government has included only 11 new development projects while all others are the ongoing ones. These new projects include, among others, the establishment of F.G. Model School at Margalla Town in PWD Colony, Islamabad; promotion of Early Childhood Education in Pakistan; establishment of a cadet college in Multan; and enhancing participation in education through targeted conditional cash transfer programme.

Some 118 development projects are included in the annual budget for implementation in 2008-09 by the ED. However, it is strange and inexplicable that out of these 118 projects, 33 are listed but without any allocations.

Last year, the government had envisaged to implement 104 development projects though it failed to spend even a single rupee on at least 39 projects by the end of March 2008.