Daily Times

PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Education Minister Atif Khan Saturday said that over 34,000 students from private sector were shifted to government-run schools last year. In his post-budget speech, the minister informed the provincial assembly that phase wise enrolment campaign in KP districts had started bearing fruits and trust of parent on government schools was restored to great extent. He said that the government spent an amount of Rs 10.8 million on several public awareness campaigns including ‘Likho Pharo’, ‘Agy Bharo Awo Bacho’, and ‘School Chalo’. The minister said that the idea of parent teacher council in the province could be the turning point in achieving hundred percent accesses to primary education. However, Zubair Abdullah, director of districts delivery unit of the Education Department, said that unless and until the government carried out the census, a uniform education policy and system could not be installed and access to every child to enrol in school was not possible. Anther official of the department, wishing not to be named, said that the Annual Statistic Census (ASC) 2013-14 and ASC 2014-15 reports were prepared on the baseline survey of 1998. Meanwhile, members of the private school association have said that each year population grows which ultimately gives push to enrolment in government schools but still the ratio of enrolment in private institution is far greater than that of government. He said that private institutions in KP believe in quality education and factual record of the out-of-school children in KP could not be judged without census. He appealed to the federal government to carry out census to judge the loopholes in the education sector.