THE Punjab Government is contemplating comprehensive educational reforms in the province aimed at improving quality, teachers’ training, provision of missing facilities and public-private partnership in respect of so-called non-performing schools. Under directions of Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz, the plan also includes establishment of transgender schools in each division and provision of packaged milk for students up to class five.
Thanks to the active and constant interest that Mian Shehbaz Sharif took during his tenure as Chief Minister of the province, the educational system in Punjab is much better than other provinces as for years teachers are being inducted purely on merit and communities have been involved to ensure proper working of the educational institutions and prompt resolution of the day-to-day problems. The Punjab Education Department is one of the largest one in the country having 52,000 schools, about four hundred thousand teachers and over 11 million students and understandably the network requires huge resources to be run successfully. Lack of proper facilities is one of the key issues and with this in view the CM has rightly called for seeking funding from philanthropists for the purpose. There are, of course, individuals and organizations that can help upgrade facilities including provision of furniture, laboratories and sports goods. As for improvement of quality of education, training of teachers, upgradation of syllabus with focus on creativity, a change in examination system and availability of scientific and computer labs matter much. We believe that instead of treading the beaten path of privatization, the provincial government should better focus on these issues.
There is a general impression, and rightly so, that most public sector schools are performing better than most private sector institutions. Therefore, there is hardly any justification for handing over schools to NGOs or the private sector, which is simply focused on profiting without caring about quality. As we have been pointing out in these columns for long, there is an urgent need to address the menace of corruption in the education departments which has become one of the main hurdles in the way of any meaningful reforms. The decision to appoint administrative officers through tests and interviews is a step in the right direction. A similar procedure should be adopted for the deployment of honest and hardworking clerical staff, as scarce resources are often misappropriated with their active connivance.
