In a meeting with US emissaries, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Monday said work on USAID-funded projects, worth $241 million, meant for the province is in progress.
“These are major interventions in education, health and municipal services sectors.” This, the CM observed during a meeting with John Hoover, deputy chief of mission at US Embassy, Islamabad, and US Consul General, Grace Shelton, at the Chief Minister House.
Planning and Development Department Chairman, Mohammad Waseem, and principal secretary to CM, Sohail Rajput, were also in attendance. Murad said that he had already declared an emergency in education and health sectors, while special attention was being given to improve municipal services. “USAID has made some important interventions and I am personally monitoring them so that the targeted population of the province can benefit from the schemes,” he said. The CM and the US dignitaries reviewed the progress of the schemes launched with USAID’s grant.
Education Programme
Since 2011, the USAID in partnership with the provincial government has been implementing the SBEP worth US $165 million, including a US $10 million share put in by the Sindh government.
The programme aims at improving the quality of education and access to it for Sindh’s children by increasing and sustaining student enrolment at the primary, middle, and secondary school levels. It is being implemented in seven districts of northern Sindh and five towns of Karachi.
Murad informed the envoy that for the implementation and management of the SBEP, a Programme Management and Implementation Unit (PMIU) has been established within the School Education Department.
The unit comprises four sections: construction management, learning reforms and community mobilisation, back office services, and planning, monitoring and evaluation.
He elaborated that some of the major components of SBEP include construction of 106 new schools with1,400 classrooms in flood-affected and other areas. Improvement of reading and numeracy skills of 750,000 children over five years of age, engaging up to 400 communities in the construction, operation and maintenance of schools for five years and establishing effective public/private partnerships to manage these schools and ensure enrolment of at least 100,000 girls, were some of the other targets identified by the CM.
He added that major targets of the programme are to increase knowledge and professional skills of 25,000 primary school teachers, particularly in Reading and Mathematics. “It also aimed at providing non-formal educational opportunities to 100,000 out-of-school children to enable 50,000 of them to transit to formal schools.”
Murad added that the SBEP also focuses on providing capacity building opportunities to 500 government officials to implement the Sindh Government Education Reforms, increase availability of adequate health care facilities for children.
The SBEP also aims at training 500 district officers, supervisors, teachers, head-teachers in developing, implementing and monitoring the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) and Early Grade Maths Assessment (EGMA) programmes.
The Planning and Development chairman said so far the SBEP has achieved considerable milestones which include completion of site assessments of 875 schools. He informed that as of now, 33 government schools are under construction at Khairpur, Sukkur and Larkana districts, whereas 37 SBEP schools are notified as campus schools with 76 being merged under the government’s consolidation policy.
Among other updates given to the foreign envoys, Waseem added that private land owners have donated their properties in Larkana, Sukkur and Khairpur to the School Education Department for reconstruction of schools.
Municipal services
With a grant of US $66 million, this programme includes a Rs927 million share of the provincial government. The MSDP aims at improving and upgrading municipal services, infrastructure in six cities of northern Sindh; they include Jacobabad, Qambar Shahdadkot, Khairpur Nathan Shah, Mehar and Johi.
The programme is currently under progress in Jacobabad but after its completion in the city it would be established in other cities too.
Jacobabad institute
This USAID project, worth $10 million, focuses on expanding access to quality healthcare services to residents of Jacobabad as well as province of Balochistan.
The JIMS is a 133-bed hospital which offers outpatient treatment, emergency and diagnostic facilities as well as specialised maternity and paediatric services, an intensive care unit and surgical facilities. The meeting was told that the hospital was functioning properly but there are some issues which are being personally looked after by the CM.
