Rs21.1bn allocated for education in Sindh 2020-21 ADP

The overall portfolio of the education sector for current revenue expenditure has been increased by 10.2 per cent from Rs220.64 billion to Rs243.14 billion for the coming financial year 2020-21.

The amount in the education budget will go to various education departments and heads, including the school education department, college education department, universities and boards department, professional training projects and public-private partnership programmes.

In the Annual Development Programme (ADP), the education sector has been allocated Rs21.1 billion for 397 ongoing and 11 new but unapproved schemes. The expected amount to be received for the education projects under the foreign projects assistance (FPA) is Rs3.1 billion while the rest of the amount will be provided by the Sindh government.

The school education department has been allocated Rs13.2 billion for 265 ongoing schemes and four new projects. Most of the schemes are for upgrading the existing government schools from primary to secondary levels, rehabilitating and improving schools, providing furniture and other basic facilities and reconstruction of dangerous school buildings.

For the college education department, Rs3.71 billion has been earmarked in the ADP 2020-21 for 67 ongoing and two new schemes. In addition to that, Rs3.3 billion has been allocated for public sector universities to strengthen their educational infrastructure and construct new educational facilities.

Fresh statistics

As per the statistics mentioned in the budget speech, the total enrolment in primary schools in Sindh is 2.5 million, inclusive of 1.6 million male and 0.96 million female students.

A total of 700,000 million students are enrolled in the middle schools, including 433,550 boys and 256,978 girls. In the secondary levels, the total enrolment is 382,558 — 248,398 boys and 134,160 girls. In the higher secondary schools, the total enrolment is 129,118 with 90,304 boys and 38,814 girls.

The total enrolment at all the school levels is 4.561 million, including 2.812 million boys and 1.749 million girls.

The CM maintained that the school education department had completed making profiles of the schools and provided essential facilities to 1,606 primary, elementary and high schools in 29 districts. It also initiated groundwork for setting up 15 English medium and six comprehensive schools under the public-private partnership node through the education management organisations (EMOs).

He said that the establishment of 2,000 new early childhood care and education classrooms, training of 2,500 early childhood education teachers and printing of Rs4.93 million sets of textbooks to all schools at the taluka and district levels was in process.

Meanwhile, it was revealed that there are 146 boys colleges, 131 girls colleges and 50 colleges that offer co-education in the province. These institutes are functioning under the administrative control of the college education deparment and currently, 436,980 pupils are enrolled there.

Budget for EMOs

The CM claimed that the Sindh government had adopted various key indicators for need assessments and performance evaluation. These indicators helped understand needs and accordingly assign resources where needed.

For the financial year 2020-21, Rs1 billion has been allocated as grant in aid for EMOs for handing over management of various schools to them.

The government allocated Rs.6.6 billion for the purchase of furniture and fixture, Rs.6.1 billion for new activities with the help of international donor agencies, Rs.2.3 billion for free textbooks, Rs.1.8 billion for school management committees to meet the requirements of schools, Rs5 billion for the repair and maintenance of school buildings, Rs480 million for the Emergent Need Fund for meeting new initiatives due to COVID-19 emergency and Rs663.4 million for educational assets of proscribed organisations of Sindh taken over by the provincial government.

Sindh Education Foundation

There is no change in the total amount allocated for the Sindh Education Foundation (SEF) in comparison to the last year with Rs9.5 billion allocated for it in the 2019-20 and 2020-21 Sindh budgets.

At present, the current enrolment in the SEF’s schools is 450,000, which is expected to increase to 550,000 in the coming financial year. Moreover, 200 new schools and as many technical training centres will be added to the portfolio of the foundation.

As a major arm of the Sindh government for public-private partnerships in the education sector, the SEF is handling over 2,300 schools spread across the deepest rural pockets of Sindh.

Universities and boards

In the outgoing financial year 2019-20, sufficient funds were disbursed to the public sector universities and boards as grant in aid. The boards were also provided funds to pay examination fee which was earlier required to be paid by the students.

For the coming financial year, an allocation of Rs5 billion has been proposed in the budget for grant to universities, Rs2 billion to educational boards, and Rs1.2 billion for the scholarship to position holders and students with the A-1 grade in Sindh.

STEVTA

The Sindh Technical Education and Vocational Training Authority (STEVTA) extended accreditation to 26 institutes across Sindh in the outgoing financial year 2019-20.

For the next financial year 2020-21, the Sindh government has allocated Rs713 million for the authority’s development projects that include providing training opportunities to 70,000 youths with reference to the COVID-19 situation, implementation of the Kamyab-Jawan Hunarmand Pakistan Programme in collaboration with the NAVTTC at 24 institutes, and implementation of modern apprenticeship system.

No budget for SHEC

A shocking aspect of the education budget 2020-21 is no funds for the Sindh Higher Education Commission, which, according to its website, was established under the mandate of 18th constitutional amendment in 2013 with the mandate to promote higher education, research and development in Sindh.

Education in pandemic

The CM also announced that the government had planned to take several steps to ensure educational activities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

For instance, he said that in order to manage college education during the COVID-19 pandemic, the college education department was planning to launch a programme of distance learning by establishing computer labs and promoting centralised teaching. To enhance technology-based interventions in the college education department, Rs451 million was allocated in the budget.