KARACHI: Sindh Education Minister Syed Sardar Shah on Thursday informed the provincial assembly that all private schools were bound to enroll 10pc poor students free of cost under the law, but many of them were not complying with it.
Answering a call attention notice given by Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan lawmaker Mangla Sharma, he said that the education department had been receiving complaints that many schools were not following the policy of free enrollment of 10 per cent deserving students. “It is pity that this has not been implemented in letter and spirit,” he deplored.
The minister said that it was the responsibility of the provincial government to provide education to a child aged five to 16 years as it was a constitutional binding that children should be given free education.
The MQM-P lawmaker said in her call attention notice that private schools were not following the free enrollment of 10pc poor children, asking as to what steps were taken by the education department in this regard.
Sardar Shah said that there had been a mushroom growth of private schools as the government did not have enough resources to carry all the burden by itself.
He said that Sindh was pioneer in carrying out a census of private school across the country. “The number of private school has reached 11,700,” he said, adding that earlier the provincial government did not know how many schools were there in the province.
The education minister said that earlier there was no data of enrollment in private schools. “We conducted screening of schools during the census of private schools,” he added.
Gorakh Hills development
In his call attention notice, Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal’s lone member Syed Abdur Rasheed asked the culture and tourism department as to why the chairlift project at Gorakh Hills had not been completed.
He said that it was a place that could have become the second hill station after Murree, but the audit report said that the Gorakh Hill Authority failed to achieve the objective.
Replying to the notice, Minister Syed Sardar Shah said that 258,000 acres were earmarked for the Gorakh Hill station, but the land could not be transferred on the order of the Supreme Court.
He said that the provincial government had invited a firm for installation of chairlift at the Gorakh Hill under the public-private partnership mode, but the matter remained pending disposal due to non-transfer of land.
Published in Dawn, August 11th, 2023