The principal minister, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Ali Amin Gandapur, promised on Tuesday that the provincial government will make education a “priority” in the next budget and will assign more resources to the sector, managed by the State Pakistan radio reported.
Prime Minister’s concerns continue following the unexpected shortage of textbooks in the province that has interrupted classes, high drop-out rates and the “low” classification of Pakistan in the report of the Education Performance Index of the 2020-23 District Education.
“Presiding over a meeting in Peshawar, he directed the measures to improve the capacity of teachers, guarantee 100 percent of merit in new recruitments and establish schools in rented buildings in areas where they are urgently needed,” the report said.
During the meeting, it was decided that integral and multifaceted measures would be taken to increase students’ registration in schools. In this sense, the schemes would be included in the next budget to support several activities.
“Gandapur expressed concern that in some districts, the rate of children outside the school is maintained alarming, and the Emergency Education Declaration is a necessary step to reduce this number and improve registration rates,” he added.
The prime minister emphasized the strengthening of the monitoring system and taking measures to provide missing facilities such as laboratories, exam rooms and other essential infrastructure in existing schools.
During the last two decades, students received books from the provincial government for free at the beginning of the school year in April. Two years ago, the Government decided to deliver only half of the required books, since the costs reached more than RS10 billion, ordering the administration of schools to collect old books of the students promoted to the next qualifications and meet the remaining requirements of the book.
This year, however, a complex situation in schools has emerged, since the Textbook Board states that it has printed all the books requested by the Department of Education, but students and teachers have complained about a shortage of books.
In August of last year, an official report placed the country’s education system in the ‘Bajo’ performance category and highlighted critical areas that require attention to improve the results of education.
