NCHD couldn’t achieve its goals

18th Amendment has not changed the education scenario as intended

Islamabad

The National Commission for Human Development (NCHD), a brainchild of Musharraf regime, is still dependent upon receiving official budgetary resources to run its operation instead of devising clear-cut roadmap for implementing exit strategy to handover schools to provincial governments.

Initially, the NCHD was conceived with this idea that it would generate its own resources which never happened at desired scale and since its inception in 2002 it largely obtained resources from the national exchequer.

In the wake of 18th Constitutional Amendment, education has become provincial subject having no solid arguments to get financial resources from federal level. As a result duplication resulted in some cases and the burden has to be borne both by federal as well as provincial governments. 

The Central Development Working Party (CDWP) has recently approved revised PC-1 worth Rs2.365 billion for running the affairs of NCHD, an outfit conceived to bring change in attaining of education levels of the country by filling missed linkages in public sector.

This correspondent made efforts to contact top guns of the NCHD to get their version but remained unable to get their replies.

However, according to official documents available with 'The News' state that the NCHD was established in 2002 as statutory autonomous federal body of the government, mandated with the role to support and augment human development efforts in the country.

The government envisaged allocation of Rs500 million for NCHD during the current fiscal year’s Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP). 

The Executive Committee of National Economic Council (Ecnec) during the PPP government in 2009 had approved original PC-1 on 20-08-2009 at a cost of Rs1,442.23 million by envisaging deadline of completion till June 2013. While granting approval, Ecnec had decided that duplication in sectoral activities at federal, provincial and local levels be avoided and exit strategy after three years be prepared.

A revised version of the PC-1 at cost of Rs660 million was approved by the CDWP in its meeting held on 13-3-2014 and allowed the project to continue its operation for one year 2013-14. The CDWP further decided that the NCHD should hold third party validation of both programmes within three months and submit report to the Planning Commission.

The sponsors submitted another PC-1 costing Rs2,867.43 million which was considered by CDWP in its meeting held on Jan 27, 2015 whereby the forum took decision that the project was approved for one year at total cost of Rs483.03 million to the extent of meeting the cost of salaries for feeder teacher programme. The sponsors would initiate arrangement to handover the running schools to the concerned provincial governments for sustainable operation & maintenance by the respective governments.

In the light of CDWP decisions, the sponsors submitted third party validation report (TPVR) to the Planning Commission dated March 30, 2015. The TPVR for Punjab and Balochistan have been prepared by Phoenix Foundation for Research and Development and Community Evaluation (CE) and for Sindh, KP, Fata, AJK & Giligit-Baltistan have been prepared by Dev Con Consultants (Pvt) Ltd.

The sponsors also submitted NCHD exit strategy on April 13, 2015. The meetings were arranged by the Ministry of Federal Education & Professional Training Islamabad with the provincial/ area education departments to discuss the exit strategy of NCHD to hand over the running schools to the concerned provincial departments for sustainable O&M arrangements by the respective governments as decision taken by the CDWP.

A pre-CDWP meeting was held under chairmanship of Planning Commission’s Member Social Sector & Devolution to discuss exit strategy and third party validation. In the pre-CDWP meeting, a consensus was developed among federal and provincial governments that the functions of NCHD have to be provincialised, however, it should be done in a phased manner. It was decided to establish a core committee which would prepare terms of reference to move certain NCHD schools to respective provinces.

In another meeting under chairmanship of the Planning Commission’s Member Social Sector it was agreed that the Feeder schools of NCHD should be handed over to provincial governments.

At a time when the process of this strategy was underway, the Federal Education and Professional Training Division Islamabad forwarded another PC-1 of the project dated 7-12-2015.

Regarding exit strategy for NCHD, the official documents explain that that the consultations with Sindh and Balochistan are underway while other provinces replied. Punjab argued that the NCHD should continue the financial and monitoring aspects of Feeder Schools till a permanent structure is in place. The AJK took stance that the Feeder Schools will remain under supervision of Education Department but the honoraria of Feeder teachers should be paid by the NCHD, G-B asks for continuation of Feeder Schools for three years and KP also asked for continuation of Feeder Schools by NCHD for next 3 years.

In the meantime, the government approved revised PC-1 with estimated cost of Rs2.365 billion while it was not yet determined as to how this project would be handed over to provincial governments.