KP enacting law to make education compulsory for all children

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has finally decided to enact the much awaited laws on compulsory education, regularisation of private schools and recruitment of school specific and non-transferable teachers.

The decision was taken in a meeting chaired by Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chief Imran Khan, according to a statement issued here on Sunday.

The senior officials of elementary and secondary education department gave timeframe to Imran Khan for enactment of each law, Mushtaq Ahmed Ghani, the spokesperson for provincial government, told Dawn.

Provincial govt will also legislate to regulate private schools and recruit school-based teachers

“The strategic support unit established at Chief Minister’s House will monitor the timeframe given by the education department regarding the impending legislation,” said Mr Ghani, who was also present in the meeting, held at Khyber Pakhtunkhwa House, Islamabad on Saturday.

Amendments in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Universities Act, 2012 regarding relaxing criteria for appointment of vice-chancellors would be introduced in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly in March 2016, an official told Dawn.

Academic activities at the newly established Women University, Mardan will also commence from March 2016 to provide higher education facilities to girl students from the entire province in general and from Mardan, Charsadda, Nowshera and Malakand districts in particular, says the statement.

The meeting was co-chaired by Chief Minister Pervez Khattak. Besides other, the meeting was also attended by Minister for Elementary and Secondary Education Mohammad Atif, Chief Secretary Amjad Ali Khan, Additional Chief Secretary Dr Hamad Owais Agha, Principal Secretary to Chief minister Dr Shahzad Bangash, secretaries of the relevant departments and a team of Department of International Development (DFID), UK.

Speaking on the occasion, Imran Khan stressed the need for improvement of college and university level standard of education and asked the provincial government to take immediate steps for making educational institutions autonomous and responsible.

Thanking DFID for helping Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to improve the standard of education in the province, Pervez Khattak said that provincial government was making all required financial resources available for education sector and spending 29 per cent of its budget for improving the state of education and it did not get the loan of a single penny for the purpose.

He directed the higher education department to accelerate work on establishment of Chitral University. He also ordered to provide transport facility to teaching staff of government colleges within the current month. He also directed to expedite the process of legislation for introducing reforms in education sector.

Briefing the meeting on priorities, progress and current status as well as timelines set for achieving the goals in elementary and secondary education and higher education department, Sahibzada Mohammad Saeed, the head of strategic support unit, said that law department had vetted the draft legislation for making school education compulsory for all children in the province and it would be implemented by June 2016.

He said that merit would be established for school based recruitment of teachers and posting and transfers would be checked and availability of teachers would be ensured through another proposed law which had been sent to law department for vetting and it would be implemented by the next April.

Published in Dawn, December 7th, 2015