Caretaker Chief Minister retired Justice Maqbool Baqar on Wednesday expressed his anger when he was informed that a large number of students in government schools of the province had not been provided free textbooks.
“This is unacceptable,” a statement issued from the CM House quoted Justice Baqar as telling officials of the school education department.
The interim CM was chairing a meeting of the school education and college departments. He was informed that 80 per cent students in government schools across the province had received free textbooks.
The CM said that this meant 20pc of the students were studying without textbooks.
He expressed grave displeasure over the non-availability of free textbooks. However, he was informed that the books could not be printed due to a shortage of funds.
Orders authorities to devise digital attendance system for college teachers
At this, the CM directed Finance Secretary Kazim Jatoi to release Rs1 billion by the evening to the school education department so that dues of the vendor could be cleared for printing the remaining books. Later in the evening, the Sindh government released the amount.
Monitoring system for college teachers’ attendance
Justice Baqar directed the secretary of colleges to develop a digital monitoring system so that teachers’ attendance and presence in the college and involvement in the educational activities could be ensured.
He observed that most college teachers were neither attending the college nor taking classes.
He directed the secretary to rationalise the teaching staff in each and every college and ensure posting of lecturers for the required subjects.
The CM also directed the education secretary to collect data of absentee lecturers and forward their cases to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to ensure termination of their services and recovery of the salaries they had drawn during the said period.
Over 7,000 teachers for 369 Sindh colleges
The CM was told that there were 369 colleges under the college education department; of them, 91 were science colleges, 45 were arts and commerce, four were information technology (IT), two each of home economics and physical, and 221 mix. Apart from them, there were 11 cadet colleges and five IBA community colleges.
It was disclosed that the total enrolment in the colleges was 588,331 with 7,111 teaching and 6,640 non-teaching staff.
The CM was informed that the Sindh Educational Fund Trust awards scholarships to deserving students on merit to enable them to complete their education in higher education institutions in the fields of IT, engineering, medicine, and business administration.
He was told that Rs6.8 billion was invested in the Endowment
Fund, against which a profit of Rs918.126 million had been earned, and the expenditures incurred so far had come to Rs839.676m and the profit of Rs78.45m was available with the trust.
He was further informed that over 21,000 students had taken advantage of the benefit from 2019-20 to 2023-24.
