Moalims

LAHORE: Punjab School Education Department has scrutinised 1,000 schools from all over the province to hand over these institutions along with their buildings and other material to the private sector through Punjab Education Foundation (PEF) from the start of the next academic session in April.

These schools are being transferred to PEF under the first batch of the main project of handing over a total of 3,500 institutions in phases to the private sector. After successful results of this public-private partnership initiative, second batch will be handed over to the PEF. School Education Department selected these schools on the basis of poor results in the class 5th examinations conducted by the Punjab Examination Commission during last two years. Commenting on the matter, Punjab Education Secretary (Schools) Abdul Jabbar Shaheen has said that the government took this initiative for the sake of providing quality education to children through public-private partnership.

He said these schools had been showing poor performance of up to 20 percent pass percentage since the last several years and there was a dire need to introduce major changes to positively explore the potential of students. He said most of the schools had been selected from the remote areas in south Punjab and small towns. To a question, he said the Punjab government would ensure protection of jobs of teachers and the subordinate staff deputed in schools while property of schools would also remain under the ownership of the Punjab government. To another question, Jabbar Shaheen said the staff of the school would be duty-bound to work under the new private partner of the PEF, however, they could opt to be transferred any other place, he added. The education secretary said that following the farsighted vision of Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, no compromise would be made on merit and quality of education.

News Reference