Chief Minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pervez Khattak has said that from next academic year the provincial government is introducing English medium education. He was addressing a DFID sponsored donors stock-take in federal capital Islamabad. Besides KP Ministers Mohammad Atif, and Shahram Khan Tarakai, Secretary Finance Syed Said Badshah Bukhari and Secretary Education Judat Ayazwere also present.
Under the scheme, he explained, English will be introduced from class -I, just like the private schools while a teacher asking for transfer from the one he is initially recruited to, will have to resign from there and apply for fresh recruitment to the station of his choice. In case he remains in the said school, he will be promoted on the basis of the results he produces in that school.
The Chief Minister called upon the donors' community to come forward and make these changes into success by training the teachers so that they are enabled to face the challenge of English teaching and provision of basic facilities in the public sector schools like furniture and fixtures.
He pointed out that though the number of schools is sufficient in the province but these are mostly and mainly two-rooms schools thus cannot cater for the 4/5 classes particularly in view of the fact that the provincial government is committed to the enrolment of all the 1.5 million out-of-school children of whom over 200,000 were enrolled just last month.
The chief minister said that the people have voted PTI into power for bringing about a change and such a change, to ameliorate the lot of the general masses, is impossible without changing the system of education in the province. He called upon the donors' community worldwide to come forward and help them bring about a real change in education.
He regretted that historically the very system of education divided among the public, private and seminary systems has been reinforcing the problems of our society as it does not help change the lot of the poor whatever hard work they do. On the other hand, the Chief Minister pointed, due to frequent posting transfers in education, no teacher take responsibility either for improvement of standard of education or looking after the sustenance and durability of the facilities provided there.
It was revealed on the occasion that the Chief Minister had just approved the revitalisation of Provincial Education Foundation paving the way for recruitment from a wider pool and increasing private sector participation in it. On the other hand, the Provincial Government will introduce assessment of students from class 8th from the next education years. The Secretary Education, in response to a question, pointed out that the provincial government was spending some 85 billion rupees on elementary education which comes to Rs 1816/- per student which is more than the per student fee of any ordinary private sector school but still the results are zero and thus required proper management and monitoring. The IMU mentioned above will eradicate absenteeism among the teachers and will improve monitoring and evaluation, he said.
