KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah after declaring `education emergency' in the province held his maiden meeting on the subject and decided to bifurcate the education & Literacy department into two departments, school education and college education so that proper concentration could be made on right from primary to college level.
The meeting held in the conference room of CM House was attended by Minister Education Jam Mehtab Dahar, Chief Secretary Siddique Memon, Secretary Education Fazal Pechuho, ACS (Dev) Mohammad Waseem, Principal secretary Naveed Karman Baloch and others.
Briefing the meeting secretary Education Fazal Pechuho said that there were 45447 schools in the province where over 145000 teaching & non-teaching staff was working. On this the chief minister said that it was not possible for one secretary to look after schools and colleges at a time. "I want special and similar focus on school and college education, therefore education department is being bifurcated into two departments, schools and colleges," he said and directed chief secretary to take necessary measures to implement the decision.
The chief minister said that he had reports that in some schools have extra teaching staff while most of the schools are in facing shortage. Taking policy decision he directed secretary education to send the teachers back to the union councils for which they were appointed. "Rationalization of staff is very important for smooth educational activities," he said.
Syed Murad Ali Shah directed the education department to start collecting school data of right from union council level. He added for example, he how many primary and secondary schools are in a particular union councils, how much children are enrolled there are how many children are out of school and how many teachers are working there? "This would help to assess the viability and non-viable of a schools, the strength of the students and teachers," he said.
He also directed the chief secretary to issue necessary instructions to district administration to keep visiting schools. A mukhtiarkar must be made responsible to visit primary schools of his areas and assistant commissioner secondary schools and DC colleges. Apart from it he constituted another monitoring committee comprising MPA, chairman district council and Deputy Commissioner concerned to look after performance and progress of schools constituency-wise. Over all MPA would be responsible.
The chief minister also directed the education department to set enrolment targets for each and every school. "There are reports that 48 percent children go to school- it means we have to work hard to bring remaining 52 children percent children to school," he said.
Syed Murad Ali Shah directed chief secretary to make necessary amendment in the rules that every PCS officer has to work one to two years in administration of education department. This must be made mandatory for promotion. "I am giving you my powers, support and backing now you have to work and I want to hear from the civil society and through social media that schools have started working," he said. He emphasized on the need of teachers training and he asked the education secretary about the progress of teachers training under Canadian programme. Secretary education Mr Pechuho said that the programme was aimed at strengthening teacher Training Institute but project activities remained very slow. During 2011-12 misappropriation of funds were unearthed. The NAb made a recovery f Rs81.29 million and took a Rs27.096 million as its share. The remaining Rs140.07 million are being recovered by CMIT. The chief minister directed secretary education to implement Canadian programme properly and keep giving him reports.
The chief minister was told that there were 2000 vacant positions of headmasters. The process to select 1080 headmasters/mistresses have been done through IBA but appointments have not been made so far. The chief minister approved the recruitment during the meeting and directed the education department to fill the remaining vacancies.
He also gave his transfer/posting and disciplinary power of grade B-20 officers of education department to education minister and said "I am surrendering my powers to ease your work. Now move on fast track to post genuine officers and take disciplinary against undisciplined and lethargic ones," he urged the minister education.
Sindh chief minister said that he would also be visiting schools frequently. Quoting Robert Frost he said "I am not a teacher but an awakener, and everyone has to work with me," he said.
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