More budget for education demanded

LAHORE:Speakers at a post-budget meeting here on Monday demanded more budget for education, especially for girls’ education.

Speaking at the meeting, AwazCDS-Pakistan Chief Executive Zia-ur-Rehman said there are 81,000 vacancies of teachers in schools of Punjab while the current budget 2021-22 has no allocation for the recruitment of new teachers.

The meeting organised by AwazCDS-Pakistan in collaboration with Punjab Legislatures Core Group on Education was attended by 14 community education champions on girls’ right to quality secondary education representing southern districts of Punjab as well as 32 members of the Punjab Assembly.

The community education champions shared their disappointments regarding lack of girls’ schools in southern districts. No appropriate transportation facilities are available in remote districts like Rajanpur, DG Khan, Layyah, Bhakkar, Jhang, Mianwali, Lodhran, Bahawalnagar, Vehari, Khanewal, Bahawalpur, Multan and Muzaffargarh, they said.

They said 5.3 million girls are already out of school in Punjab whereas 32pc left schools during Covid-19 pandemic, Chief Executive Zia-ur-Rehman said. Addressing the participants Qaiser Rashid, Additional Secretary Planning & Budget for School Education Department, shared that the government has released Rs14 billion to deliver education to 400,000 girls attending schools for the last three years. Cabinet has approved this in the last meeting and the amount shall be delivered through Punjab Social Protection Authority.

The Punjab legislatures including Mian Muhammad Shafi, Sadia Sohail, Semabia Tahir, Shamim Aftab, Muzaffar Abbas, Shamim Altaf, Kanwal Liaqat and others assured their all-out support to raise voice for quality secondary education for girls at every level.

Ayesha Nawaz, Chairperson Standing Committee on School Education, said Punjab Free & Compulsory Education Amendment Act 2020 is with the Education Standing Committee and the members will soon approve its enactment in the selected districts. Under the act every private school will be bound to provide free education up to 20pc of its total students and this will provide access to poor parents to enroll their children, especially girls in nearby private schools for free, she said.

UET entrance test registration: Around 23,176 students have registered for UET entrance test so far while last date to pay registration fee online and acquire a token number for the ECAT 2021 is June 27, 2021. A UET spokesperson said all Pakistani students who have passed or are about to take the intermediate exams will be allowed to sit in ECAT. However, candidates who do not appear in the UET entrance test will not be eligible for admission in the undergraduate programmes of any government engineering institution of Punjab. The mock tests for undergraduate programmes will be held on July 2 and 3, while the entrance tests will be held from July 5 to 8, 2021.