The government of Khyber Pakthunkhwa Government planned to upgrade 50 existing primary schools to middle level in the province aimed at provide education quality opportunities to students of remote areas at their doorsteps. Officials in Elementary and Security Education Department told APP on Wednesday that government was working on a strategy to upgrade 50 primary schools to middle level in different parts of the province in line with wishes of community. He said this project would be completed with an estimated cost of Rs 550 million while Rs 180 million would be utalized in current fiscal year. These schools would be upgrade in areas where middle schools are either not available or located at distance of seven kilometres. Likewise, upgradation of 25 Govt High Schools to Higher Secondary level in Khyber was also on cards that would be completed with an estimated cost of Rs.625 million, saying 200 million rupees would be spent in current fiscal. If land is available, he said, buildings for rented schools including 50 primary and as many middle would be built with cost of Rs.800 million.
The Government accords high priority to education and declared education emergency in the province in the budget 2013-14.
To provide better infrastructure to students, the Government has planned to construct 500 additional classrooms in the schools where open space is available and strength of students are high. He said this project would be completed in two years with allocation of Rs.150 million in Annual Development Programme 2013-14.
Parents Teachers Council (PTC) would be further motivated to get far-reaching effects in the education sector, adding there are about 28,500 schools in the public sector with around 127,000 teaching staff in Khyber Pakthunkhwa and the government annually spends near to Rs 85 billion in the elementary and secondary education sector to equip our students with ornment of education.
Similarly, he said about 3.9 million children are studying in these schools and efforts are being made to revamp the existing education system by addressing the issues of students dropout , gender disparity, poor access and quality, abysmal examination system and deficient teacher training system.
Source: The Frontier Post.
