Minister says future of kids a priority

PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Minister for Finance Taimur Saleem Jhagra has said the future of the children was the priority of the government.

“We want the schools they go to look and feel different, and to be centers of learning. The KP government will build more than 10,000 Early Childhood Education Classrooms and creation of New Early Childhood Education (ECE) programme is also on cards for which enough resources would be allocated in the fiscal year 2019-20,” he told a meeting about the establishment of Early Childhood Classrooms at Government Primary Schools across the province.

Taimur Saleem Jhagra said that learning in the early years of a child’s life sets the foundation to learn in the future. “The ECE is crucial for a child’s cognitive development and future learning success,” he said. The minister added in the past the concept and understanding of ECE was very limited and has been largely confined to an unofficial class (katchi class) before Grade 1 and in most cases, katchi-class children had to share a room with Class 1 and Class 2 students under the same roof, as almost all public primary schools in the country follow multi-grade sitting arrangements due to a lack of classrooms and teachers.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has already established model Early Childhood Classrooms at some of its primary schools in the previous government for providing a dedicated learning atmosphere to kids an early age.