Minister vows reforms in school education dept

LAHORE: Punjab Minister for Schools Education Murad Raas has said that holistic reforms will be introduced in the School Education Department and every possible resource will be utilised to secure the future of the youth by providing them with quality education.

Chairing a meeting of the chief executive officers of district education authorities of Lahore division at the committee room of Minister’s Block, here on Wednesday, he said the district heads should submit reports about their respective districts to him so that the matters pertaining to them could be timely solved.

Punjab School Education Department (SED) Secretary Ambreen Raza, Special Secretary Nadeem ur Rehman, Director Monitoring Rana Abdul Qayyum, Lahor District Education Authority (DEA) CEO Naseem Zahid and CEOs of other districts of Lahore division attended the meeting.

It has been planned to construct additional classrooms in public sector schools so that educational process of the students did not be suffer due to lack of classrooms.

The meeting took a detailed review of different issues, including dilapidated school buildings, missing facilities, need for construction of additional classrooms to accommodate the growing number of students, grant of additional funds and capacity building of teachers along with new recruitment.

The CEOs apprised the minister of their performance, infrastructure issues and other matters relating to the department in their respective districts.

The minister announced that he would hold public courts at the level of districts to solve the issues on-spot. Similarly, public complaints will now be addressed timely through the efficient public complaints management system.

“Public service is our prime objective and the role of SED is very important in the journey of social change in the province,” he said.

He directed that special attention be given to the provision of missing facilities in the schools because the goal of quality education could not be achieved without provision of conducive atmosphere to the students. He also directed recruitment of sweepers and security guards and issued directions for the assessment of performance and educational qualifications of teachers. “We have planned to develop the SED according to international standards so that students could be developed as future leaders and the teachers could perform better in the classrooms”, he added.

Murad Raas said people had voted the PTI for bringing about change in the archaic system. He added, “We are committed to bringing about meaningful change in every sphere of life so that Pakistan could rapidly move towards progress and prosperity.”

Earlier, the schools secretary briefed the minister about the ongoing schemes of the department. Call for timely payment of pension: The City District Government Teachers Union (CDGTU) has demanded the government that provision of pension to retired teachers of the Municipal Corporation cadre be ensured by 2nd or 3rd of every month like the retired teachers of general cadre.

In a press release, CDGTU Chairman Saeed Namdar said the retired teachers of Municipal Corporation cadre got their pensions with extensive delay, adding to their financial problems. He said this month many retired teachers could not sacrifice animals on Eidul Azha as they failed to get their pension.

The CDGTU has also appealed to the chief justice of Pakistan to take notice of delayed award of pension to the retired teachers of the Municipal Corporation cadre.