LAHORE: Punjab Schools Education Minister Rana Mashhood said on Sunday that the Education Department would hold the largest-ever sports festival from March. In an interview, he said that around 1.5 million school children would take part in the event. “The largest-ever school children’s sports festival is being launched in partnership with the UK government. Sports are an antidote to racism and intolerance in the society. Sports also ensure a healthy society,” he said. To another question, the education minister said that UK was the largest donor in the education sector in Punjab and all funding was due to the unshakeable confidence of UK government in the governance module in Punjab. He said the British government would also fund the schools education department on the vocational training education from class 8 in all public sector schools in Punjab. “Our teacher training module is the largest in the world in schools education. A total of 450,000 teachers are provided training. The training was started on University College London (UCL) and Cambridge and Oxford model. Digital libraries will be launched in all public sector schools in Punjab from the month of March 2018,” he said. The minister said there had been marked decrease in out-of-school children due to the efforts made by the schools education department. “Out-of-school children between the ages of 5 to 9 from brick-kilns, restaurants and petrol stations were brought back to schools. No children between ages of 5 to 9 will be out of school from next academic year,” the minister said. About the low-performing public sector schools, the education minister said more schools would be given to the well-reputed educational entities for improvement in education standards, adding that initially 4,300 low performing schools, where enrolment was under 20 and annual result was from 0-20 percent, were handed over to private educational organisations. He said the results were encouraging. “The results improved by 80 percent. Attendance ratio increased by 90 percent at these low-performing schools,” he said. About adding the topics about child-abuse in school curriculum, he said the syllabus had been designed in consultation with ulema, psychologists, educationist and other stakeholders and would be introduced in books at primary, elementary and secondary levels from the next academic session. He further said the booklet on child abuse would be made part of the curriculum in private schools and all madrassahs besides the public sector schools. “Awareness campaign on child abuse will also be run across Punjab,” he added. He said that the Punjab government was focusing on improving the education sector through various steps. “The government is providing funds and staff for all schools. By providing the missing facilities and trained teachers, the standard of education will be improved in the schools. Our goal is to ensure that the enrollment of children is improved as well as the quality of education,” he said. Published in Daily Times, February 19th 2018.