Engineer Qamar ul Islam Raja kicks off ‘Education Monitor’ programme

Lahore: Chairman Punjab Education Foundation, Engineer Qamar ul Islam Raja has said that educationally backward areas are being identified through use of information and communication technologies in the province and in this way, new schools have been set in these areas as a result of which free quality education has been made available to resource-less children especially girls near their homes. It is our effort that all children from the age of 5 to 16 years should be enrolled till 2018 in Punjab and poverty and backwardness should not remain a hurdle in study of any children, he added.

He expressed these views while addressing a launching ceremony of ‘Education Monitor’ at a local hotel under the aegis of a social organization Society for Advancement of Education. He said that data of all schools of Punjab Education Foundation has been stored under GIS mapping so that selection of new schools could become easy. Similarly, educationally backward areas would also be identified. He told that technology friendly policy of Punjab Education Foundation has resulted in provision of quality education through partner schools.

MD Punjab Education Foundation, Dr. Anila Salman said that provision of quality education has been ensured in partner schools through quality assurance test. She said that educational collaboration has been made with two different NGOs for elimination of educational backwardness and education of out of school children in Muzaffargarh and Rahim Yar Khan. She said that 30 thousand out of school children have been identified in one month and process of provision of free education will be started to these children by opening 800 partner schools till September. Representative of DFID Dr. Javed Malik said that Punjab Education Foundation is a best model of public private partnership. Abbas Rasheed, Jamil Najam, Dr. Faisal Bari, Dr. Salman Hummayun and Qaiser Rasheed also spoke on the occasion.