Gani said that the census of schools and seminaries will be completed in the 2021-22 fiscal year

At a press conference held in the Sindh Provincial Assembly Auditorium on Monday, Education Minister Saeed Ghani stated that the Ministry of School Education and Literacy (SELD)’s annual budget for the 2021-22 fiscal year has increased from Rs 2,445 crore to 262.8 rupees billion.

In the 2021-22 fiscal year, the SELD development budget is 14 billion rupees, and 4 billion rupees have been allocated to the development work of the university education department. Ghani said that in the next fiscal year, the government will focus more on repairing and improving old schools rather than building new schools.

“The Cabinet has approved the appointment policy for 2021, according to which various appointment rules have been revised. More than 37,000 teachers will be appointed through bachelor’s degree. Currently, more than 400,000 applications have been received,” he explained.

He added that in the coming fiscal year, more than 30,000 school teachers, 1,700 ECE teachers and 6,000 JEST received life-based education. In cooperation with various partners, approximately 3.5 million students have received training in youth health, nutrition, child protection, and citizenship. He said that the education department has completed 181 plans and issued 80% of the previous year’s budget.

In 2021-22, the estimated budget is 5 billion rupees for school building renovation and maintenance, and 1.2 billion rupees for the school management committee to meet the daily needs of the school. For the purchase of furniture and equipment, 7.8 billion rupees have been allocated.

Ghani said that the Sindh Education Foundation (SEF) is an important part of the Sindh government’s public-private cooperation in the field of education. It currently educates approximately 475,000 students in 1,800 schools and centers in the province. The foundation provided more than 400 new scholarships to approximately 2,500 talented students in 2021. Approximately Rs 10.75 billion will be allocated for SEF in the 2021-22 fiscal year.

According to the Minister of Education, in the next school year, with the help of EMO, as many as 15 English secondary schools and 14 comprehensive schools will operate through SEF. Under the public-private partnership model, 500 to 800 viable government school buildings in poor condition will be put into use.

He said that there are only 4,000 sub-clusters in primary and secondary schools. He said that in the remaining 2,000 sub-clusters, the government plans to classify central primary schools as primary or secondary schools, adding that about 100 schools have been upgraded this year to provide post-primary education.

Ghani said that SEF will add 1,000 primary or secondary schools in the next financial year. He pointed out that according to Pakistan’s social and living standards, 6.4 million students are out of school in Sindh, while 22.8 million children are out of school in Pakistan. To date, more than 170,000 out-of-school children have been admitted to 6,351 non-formal education centers.

In the 2021-22 fiscal year, approximately 600 million rupees have been allocated to open and operate 3,000 non-formal education centers in Kashmore, Jacobabad, Mirpurkhas, Umerkot and Tharparkar regions, providing education opportunities for 90,000 children.

Ghani announced that it will complete the census of private schools and religious schools in the new fiscal year, which will determine the final number of children who are out of school. In Hyderabad, Jamshoro, Sukkur, Hikarpur, Jacobabad, Sanhar, Ummerkot, Karachi Korangi, Karachi Malil and Karachi West, fiscal year 2021-22 Five new colleges and 14 new colleges will be built, and related work is in progress.

The Minister of Education stated that in the next fiscal year, the province will build 19 degree colleges. He said that a policy has been formulated that will improve teacher attendance and teacher quality later, adding that biometric identification systems will be introduced in schools to ensure the attendance of teachers and children.