Govt asked to initiate massive school de-ghosting campaign

Lahore: The Islamabad Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Sunday lauded the government for focusing on promotion education which is imperative for the national development.

 

 

 

Higher education sector is already performing well producing more research papers per capita than India, it said.

 

 

 

The former government neglected education and slashed the HEC budget by half but the PML-N has again upward revised it and promised to increase education budget to four per cent of the GDP by 2018, said Farida Rashid, President IWCCI.

 

 

 

Talking to business community, she said that taxing education should be reconsidered as its implications may not be in the national interest.

 

 

 

She said that serious steps are needed for raising the standards of education after a detailed valuation which must include de-ghosting of around thirty thousand primary schools closed since decades depriving generations of children of education.

 

 

 

Former government has the honour of de-ghosting one school in five years, now if the process is accelerated by 400 per cent, country can get rid of all ghost schools in thirty thousand years, said Farida Rashid.

 

 

 

She said that government should discourage construction of schools for making money, or to be used as cattle pens, fodder storage centres and guest houses of the influential.

 

 

 

Gamblers, smugglers, hardened criminals and drug addicts should not be allowed to use schools for their activities, she demanded.

 

 

 

Farida Rashid said that teachers of ghost schools have been bribing bosses to ensure uninterrupted payment of salaries which make them as good or bad as the elements bombing girls’ schools.

 

 

 

Names of teachers of ghost schools, their supporters, foreign funding and inspections are one of the best kept secrets of the country which must be made public, she said.

 

 

 

Absence of community-based monitoring and reporting system is making the situation worst while education departments have no inclination to create awareness regarding this issue which has left Pakistan second on the global list of most out of school children.

 

 

 

Pakistan ranks 113 out of 120 countries on the Education Development Index which exposes claims of the concerned authorities, she said.

 

 

 

A fresh census for street children may act as eye-opener as presently it is believed that 25 million children, an untapped human resource and a potential threat to threat to peace, are out of school.

 

 

 

Education should be delivered to all, especially in the worst performing provinces of Balochistan and Sindh and all those should be made accountable who are pushing generations to illiteracy, poverty, crimes, and terrorism for personal gains, she dem