The educational reforms under the leadership of Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif have been appreciated as a successful case study
Lahore Jan 05 (TNS): Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif firmly believes that education is the real key to success and no human being can attain socio-economic progress without education.
According to him education is not only equivalent to worship but is a national obligation as well as no nation in the world can attain development and prosperity without the support of education and it is the primary right of every child which deserves immediate attention. Educational programs introduced under by his Punjab Government are now known worldwide.
World famous English-language publication ‘The Economist’ has painted the robust role of educational reforms, espoused by the Punjab Government under the leadership of Chief Minister Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif as worth-following by other countries.
The ‘The Economist’ noted that the Punjab is also improving oversight and working out how to inform parents about standards. It has dispatched 1,000 education department officials equipped with tablets to conduct basic checks on whether schools are operating and staff and children are turning up.
In a joint study by the World Bank, Harvard University and Punjab Government, parents in some villages are given report cards showing test scores of their children and the average for schools nearby, both public and private. As a result of this reform, participating villages have more children in school and their test scores in maths, English and Urdu are higher than in comparable villages where cards were not distributed.
It is worth-noting that the educational reforms under the leadership of Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif have been appreciated as a successful case study.
As a flagship program of the CM, Punjab Education Foundation has been doing a commendable job in ensuring equitable access to children from extremely poor households. They are provided opportunities to study in PEF partner schools where they are financed by the Foundation through its various public private partnership programs.
More than five thousand low-cost private schools in all the 36 districts in Punjab are catering to educational needs of two million needy children.
Punjab Chief Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif kept on reviewing progress on the School Reforms Roadmap Programme as the reforms in the education system, introduced by the Punjab government, were producing positive results.
The provincial government has made great progress in achieving targets. Education standard has improved due to introduction of IT by Shehbaz Sharif.
The Punjab government outsourced 4,300 schools under the private-public partnership and the enrolment of students and quality of education increased phenomenally. Enrolment from private schools to public schools has increased to 33%, while the percentage of retention is up by 57%.
Merit is being ensured at all costs in every project of the provincial government and thousands of teachers have been recruited purely on that basis. The Punjab Education Endowment Fund is a “great project” and over 200,000 deserving students benefited from it. It was the biggest project of its kind in South Asia.
The Punjab government has distributed education scholarships worth Rs12 billion rupees and students benefitting from this project increased to 350,000 by the end of the year.
Girl students from less-developed districts of the province are getting scholarships from the Zewar-e-Taleem Project and more vouchers under the scheme were distributed last year. The project changed the education scenario in the province.
