Daily Times

Punjab Minister for Higher Education Raja Yasir Humayun and Minister for School Education Dr Murad Raas said on Thursday that the government was going to establish universities in most deprived divisions of the South Punjab and introduce Urdu as medium of instruction from grade 1-5 in all government schools by March this year.

Both the ministers were responding to questions of lawmakers during the ongoing session of the Punjab Assembly.

Responding to a question of PTI’s Muneeb Sultan Cheema, Minister Humayun said that the incumbent government was against the tradition of sub-campuses. He said that numerous sub-campuses established over the last few years lacked monitoring of education standard. “We are going to close them in the current year,” he said, adding: “We don’t want to close sub-campuses abruptly due to students’ future.” Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Syed Usman Mehmood said that there was not a single university in Sadiqabad, a tehsil in South Punjab, despite its 1.5 million population. Hamayun told the House that the PTI’s government was going to introduce a policy to establish universities in those divisions that lack universities. When asked by Deputy Speaker Sardar Dost Muhammad Mazari about the specific area where from they are going to start, the minister said it is before time to speak. “Feasibility is to be completed before this fiscal year so that it can be presented in next ADP.”

Responding to a question asked by MPA Shahida Ahmed, Raas said that the government was going to introduce Urdu as medium of instruction from grade 1-5 in all government schools by March this year. On another supplementary question, he made it clear that by March 2020, a uniform curriculum system would be introduced in primary schools.

Raas said that an authority would be constituted to deal with such schools that had reduced fee but blackmailing parents and affecting school timings. When Deputy Speaker Sardar Dost Muhammad Mazari sought timeframe for implementation of fee reduction order, Raas said that the government could not force private schools to fix the issue. But he said, “We are on board with them and will resolve the issue soon.”

The House will meet again today (Friday).

Published in Daily Times, January 11^th 2019.