No school being privatised: minister

LAHORE:Punjab Education Minister Rana Sikandar Hayat has said no school is being privatised. The minister said this while holding a meeting with columnists and analysts in which educational challenges faced by Punjab and possible measures were discussed. The minister talked about the reforms in the education sector and gave a briefing on the up-gradation of schools, TNA test, outsourcing and other issues.

Rana Sikandar Hayat clarified that no school was being privatised and said privatisation and outsourcing were two different things. He said that it has been decided to run schools with poor performance under public-private partnership. Outsourced schools were still owned by the state, he added. The minister said that Matric-Tech would be started from March 2025. He said that commerce colleges were being converted into e-commerce colleges.

British Council to help expand edu projects

Punjab Education Minister Rana Sikandar Hayat met with British Council CEO Scott McDonald and Country Director James Hempson here on Monday.

In the meeting, bilateral cooperation in the field of education in Punjab and various issues were discussed, including expanding the ongoing education projects with the support of the British Council.

In the meeting, a detailed consultation was held on support in various fields in school and higher education. Joint initiatives for out-of-school children and girls' education in seven districts of Punjab were also discussed. On this occasion, the minister said that the British Council was supporting the Punjab government in most of the education projects

Capacity-building

Fatima Jinnah Medical University Lahore hosted an inaugural ceremony of the capacity-building programme for the university management in collaboration with the Higher Education Commission.

Dr Noor Amna Malik, Managing Director, National Academy of Higher Education (NAHE), Higher Education Commission (HEC) graced the occasion as a chief guest. The Vice Chancellor, FJMU Prof Dr Khalid Masood Gondal, graced the occasion as a patron-in-chief. He welcomed the distinguished guest Dr Noor Amna Malik. He said that learning is a lifelong process that begins at the time of birth and continues until death.

Such training programmes are worthwhile to build-up the performance of the institutions, he said and added, ‘We are grateful to the Chairman, Higher Education Commission, Dr Mukhtar Ahmed, and Dr Noor Amna Malik for including FJMU in training programmes.’