Improving secondary education a priority: schools secretary

Sharing the School Education Department’s line of action with development partners, secretary schools Abdul Aziz Uqaili claimed secondary education will be the department’s top priority as 90 percent of the schools in the existing education infrastructure were primary.

Out of 45,447 schools a total of 41,131 (90.5 percent) were primary schools, the secretary stated. 

He further claimed that the department will focus on training teachers and setting up an accountability mechanism which would be linked with the students’ learning outcome.

Speaking of students’ low scores in Science and English assessments, the secretary claimed that it was because only 9.3 percent teachers were graduates of Science, while 90.7 percent have degrees in Arts group.

“Keeping this situation in mind, we have now decided that only candidates with backgrounds of Science, English, Math and Information Technology will be recruited under the new policy.” 

The meeting was organised by the School Education Department in collaboration with the Asian Development Bank. The agenda of the meeting were on bringing about short and long-term reforms in the secondary education sector of the Sindh province.

The European Union, USAID, JICA, UNICEF, World Bank and the Asian Development Bank presented their current and future programmes and assistance plans and emphasised on the need for harmonising donations to avoid duplication and overlaps. The participants took stock of the situation and agreed to work together to bring about the reforms.

Chief programme manager of the school education department’s Reform Support Unit, Faisal Ahmed Uqaili, highlighted the challenges and opportunities of the public school education system and presented a presentation based on statistical data.

The secretary school education highlighted the importance of secondary education in the overall education system of the province and expected of the ADB to design a programme to address these challenges, particularly those affecting teacher training and management. These included enhancing the quality of education being departed by the teachers, their capacity and accountability.

The secretary, Planning and Development Board, heads of allied sections of school education department including Sindh Education Foundation, Provincial Institute for Teacher Education, Bureau of Curriculum, Curriculum Wing Sindh, Teacher Education Development Authority and Sindh Basic Education Programme and non-formal education officials were also present at the session.