Education is PTI’s top priority, Usman Buzdar

Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar said on Tuesday that education is a core policy of PTI and stressed the need to seek knowledge while calling it a lost legacy of Muslims.

Speaking at the Punjab Education Convention here at Governor House, he stated that as the government strives to educate every child, 66 percent increase was made in the development budget and 286 percent and 29 percent increase was made in higher education and school education budgets, respectively.

Minister said that School Education Department (SED) worked tirelessly to guarantee equitable access to quality education by every child, and historic steps were taken in this regard. Meanwhile, Punjab school education policy 2020 was also announced, he added.

The CM said Punjab was the first province to present an e-transfer policy for the Education department and more than 86000 teachers had benefited from it. E-retirement, e-promotion, e-pension and e-leave facilities were also made accessible for teachers, he said.

He further announced that as many as 31,000 STI’s would be employed in different phases to overcome teacher shortages in schools. He said the recruitment of teachers would start soon in different categories.

He said that recruitment with relaxed conditions was made to overcome teachers’ shortage in 10 backward districts while locals were recruited under hardship policy. He added that the former government upgraded 1330 schools in five years while the PTI government had upgraded 1533 schools in just three years.

As many as 27000 schools, including 40% from south Punjab and 53% girls schools, would be upgraded. Whereas 7000 schools would be upgraded in the current financial year, he continued.

Furthermore, 600 projects were in progress to restore derelict and abandoned school buildings. Likewise, essential facilities were being provided in schools under a program to ensure missing facilities for the students. More than 2000 classrooms had been built with assistance from DFID, and 1,000 sciences and IT labs’ restoration projects had also been completed, he said.