Punjab: 34,000 educators to be recruited

[Naveed Yaseen]

THE Senate’s Standing Committee on Education held a meeting to review the developmental programme of the Punjab School Education Department here on Monday.

According to a DGPR handout, Senator Razina Khan, chairperson of the committee, while speaking on the occasion, said under the leadership of Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, a comprehensive plan had been made for the education sector.

Giving the briefing about the School Education Department, Schools Secretary Nadeem Ashraf said the Punjab government had allocated record financial resources for the education sector and enhanced education budget up to 90 per cent. Moreover, for capacity building of managerial staff of the department, a special training course was being started with the collaboration of the Government College University (GCU) and participants of the course would be appointed on administrative posts, he added.

The secretary schools further said that with a view to fulfilling the shortage of teachers in government schools, 34,000 educators were being recruited he maintained. He said public-private partnership was being promoted through the Punjab Education Foundation, which had trained 67,743 teachers of private schools and 11,750 schools of the private sector were being facilitated by fee support programme of the foundation.

Highlighting the steps taken by the department to raise the education standard, the secretary said the Directorate Staff Development had chalked out a three-year training programme for school teachers, adding that under the programme, 42,000 primary school teachers, 65,000 middle school teachers and 5,000 secondary school teachers would be imparted in-service training.

The secretary stated that 288 centres of excellence schools would be established at all tehsil headquarters and such schools would be provided standard facilities. He said these schools were being set up in the backward areas of southern Punjab in the first phase.

The meeting was attended by Senator Syed Javed Ali Shah, Senator Prof Muhammad Ibrahim Khan, Senator Dr Abdul Khaliq Pirzada, Senator Tahira Latif, Senator Liaqat Ali Bengalzai, Senator Amar Ahmad Khan, Senator Syed Tahir Hussain Mashhadi, Senator Prof Sajid Mir and Senator SM Zafar.

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