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Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak has said that the introduction of a comprehensive monitoring system for pinpointing ghost schools, ghost and proxy teachers and attendance of both students and children is the need of the hour to bring positive changes in education sector and improve the standard of education in the province.
He was addressing the inaugural ceremony of the establishment of Independent Monitoring Unit (IMU) for schools on different matters including educational needs and attendance of staff and students in schools as chief guest here Wednesday. He said that today the coalition government of PTI has achieved this target, which was never paid any attention in past and education system was deteriorated in the province. However, he said now it will not happen now and situation would be changed totally.
Provincial Minister for Education, Mohammad Atif Khan and Project Director, IMU, Ikramullah Khan also addressed while besides provincial ministers, administrative secretaries and other higher authorities, inspectors of monitoring unit and prominent citizens attended the ceremony.
On this occasion, the Provincial Minister for Education told that out of 1,00,000 candidates 475 monitors have been recruited in a transparent manner through NTS, who during the short period of last three months after conducting survey of more than 25,000 schools of the province have collected comprehensive data regarding schools requirements including attendance of students and teachers, furniture, toilets and water.
He said that this monitoring process will continue and besides needs of schools and teachers’ attendance measures for bringing improvement in standard of education will be taken in light of that survey.
The chief minister while appreciating the joint efforts of the Department of Education and British donor agency DFID for establishment of fool-proof system for monitoring of schools in such a period of time expressed the hope that it will result in bringing effective improvement. He said that it will not only simplify action against corrupt and incompetent elements in department of education, but will also bring the destination of the improvement in standard of education more closer. He said that before the establishment of PTI government, corruption was rampant in all departments of the provincial government and all public sectors organization were brought on the verge of destruction. However, he said we first gave priority to education and health and imposed proclaimed emergency in both sectors. He said that steps taken by them had started bearing fruits.
Pervez Khattak said that Sehat Ka Insaf has proved a success and adopted by other provinces as well. He said our police force has also been widely acknowledged as role model after freeing it from political interference. He said police department was turned into turret of corruption due to self interest policies of the past rulers despite the fact that a society was always reformed or deteriorated by the way police acted. He said today PTI led coalition govt took another basic step for improving quality of education with establishment of the independent monitoring unit in elementary education department. “We abolished the class based colonial system of education that was introduced by English rulers as symbol of slavery in subcontinent and started unified educational system of international standard from this academic year to erase difference between the children of rich and poor and enable them all to compete in all fronts equally”, he said adding that it would prove milestone for bringing about educational and economic revolution the next decade.
Chief Minister said that his govt has stopped interference in all public sector departments. He said all appointments including teachers were being made purely on merit. He said a process of recruiting 14 thousand teachers have been started out of which 8 thousand have been employed while remaining 6 thousand were also been appointed through NTS to make it transparent exercise and ensure supremacy of merit. He said 5 districts have been selected to post teachers in schools of their choice whereafter their transfers would be banished for good till their retirement. He said such a policy would be adopted all over the province with legislation cover so that teachers were also made bound to show good results and they found no excuse for saving their skins. He said the past policy of establishing primary schools in two rooms and two teachers has also been ended and in future there would be at least 6 rooms in every primary school with sufficient teachers under the ratio of one teacher for 40 students.
Pervez Khattak said that it would be a great achievement if we got rid of the posting/transfers of teachers and political interference in education department and if we did so then quality of even tot (jute mat) schools would become better than private schools.
However he said that his govt would give proper attention on fulfilling all needs of schools. He said though we faced financial constrains against deficiencies of thousands of schools in the province however after consultation with our party Chairman Imran Khan we have found a way out. He said provincial govt was soon introducing “construct school” program wherein overseas Pakistanis were being appealed to donate for construction of a school or class rooms or toilets in a school of their choice that would be spent transparently through school committees. He said next was an era of revolution in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa wherein standard of education in public sector institutions would be so much improved that even rich people would prefer to admit their wards in it than private schools and that would be the day of his (CM) satisfaction as well, he concluded.
Source: The Frontier Post.
