COVID-19: Education most-affected area in Sindh, says Ghani

NAUSHAHRO FEROZE: Sindh Education and Labour Minister Saeed Ghani on Sunday said COVID-19 caused irreparable loss to education in the province. The minister said millions of children suffered as they could not go to their schools. The minister hoped to compensate the educational loss of students in the months ahead with the help of non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

Speaking at a foundation-stone laying ceremony of an educational complex in Mehrabpur Town of district Naushahro Feroze, he said hundreds of schools were established unnecessarily in Sindh by the past governments, which were now lying closed due to lack of resources and other problems.

“We are going to close down these unnecessary and illogical schools in the province and use the resource to rehabilitate and repair schools which are necessary but lack teachers, furniture and other resources,” Saeed Ghani said.

On the occasion, the minister performed the groundbreaking of the new educational complex of the non-profit Green Crescent Trust (GCT) and vowed to provide land and other resources to organisations like GCT, saying they were supporting the provincial government in promoting education and literacy in the province.

Also present on the occasion were around 50 top donors of the GCT, who especially travelled over 350 kilometres from Karachi and reached the event’s venue to show their firm commitment to the cause of educating children of deprived families in Sindh. Praising GCT, especially its Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Zahid Saeed for establishing schools in far-flung areas of the province, he said the provincial government required support from bona fide non-governmental organisations like the GCT to end illiteracy in Sindh. He said education is one of the most-affected fields due to the Covid-19 pandemic as the government had to join hands with the concerned private sector and the NGOs to fully revive academic activities in the best interest of students. He recalled that in the recently-unveiled budget of the Sindh government, education had secured the highest allocation of over Rs377 billion, showing their utmost resolve to educate the coming generations.

He said the Sindh government’s Labour Department would also seek cooperation from the leading NGOs of the education sector to provide quality school education to children of labourers in the province Speaking on the occasion, CEO of GCT Zahid Saeed said the GCT had established over 150 charitable schools in Sindh having an enrollment of over 29,000 students of the backward areas.

He said prior to building the new educational complex, the GCT had 10 charitable schools in Mehrabpur having 2,500 students of destitute families. The new educational complex would enrol another 2,500 students of the town from Class Prep to Class 12 after completion of the project. He said the construction of the project would complete in one year’s time.

Zahid Saeed expressed his sincerest gratitude to the donors and sponsors of the GCT for their generous support for the mission to provide school education of top standard to children of less-privileged areas in Sindh. He mentioned that the charitable educational network of the GCT in Mehrabpur provided direct and indirect employment to thousands of youth of the faraway town of Sindh. The GCT CEO said that his charity required more support from the corporate sector to widen the footprint of its charitable work in the education sector of Sindh and promised on the occasion to inaugurate the project on 14th August, 2022. Saeed Ghani also promised to attend the inauguration ceremony of the project next year. MPA of area Mumtaz Chandio also attended the ceremony and promised to support the work of GCT in Nasuhahro Feroze.