LAHORE March 23 (TNS): British educationist Sir Michael Barber has briefed a meeting, chaired by Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif through a video link from London, about the strides made in the health and education sectors.
The video link was held at the Chief Minister’s Special Monitoring Unit (SMU) that took stock of the progress made during the recent years.
In the meeting, Sir Barber discussed the education reforms. The chief minister was briefed that the education landscape of the province had transformed and 1.6 million children have been enrolled in public schools since 2012. It was told that the education budget has been increased since 2012.
Barber said that “350,000 students were receiving special scholarships from the Punjab Educational Endowment Fund and the department of education had reconstructed 7,400 dangerous buildings of schools.
Talking about the health reforms, Barber said that over a million children were being protected against chronicle disease like measles and basic health units had been increased from 70 to 1000 since 2014. The next targets are to increase skilled birth attendance and improve the malnutrition treatment mark, he said.
Shehbaz expressed satisfaction over the end of his five-year tenure on good notes. He, however, expressed that there was still a long way to go for the better provision of healthcare and education.
Many prominent educationists, journalists, politicians and senior officials also attended the meeting.
