Recruitment of 72,000 educators approved by Punjab CM

Recruitment of 72,000 educators approved by Punjab CM

LAHORE: Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif has accorded approval to the recruitment of 72,000 educators in public schools of the province during next two years in addition to 80,000 educators recruited in the last fiscal year.

This step has been taken to ensure successful campaign for 100 percent enrollment in schools under enrolment emergency to be started from August 14 this year which requires more and more teachers to meet the expected phenomenal increase in the number of students throughout Punjab.

This was disclosed by Provincial Minister for Education Rana Mashhood Ahmad Khan while presiding over a high level meeting in connection with Punjab Schools Reforms Roadmap, here on Wednesday. Additional Chief Secretary Mirza Sohail Amir, Secretary Higher Education Farhan Aziz Khawaja, Secretary Schools Education Abdul Jabbar Shaheen, MD Punjab Education Foundation Ambreen Raza, Chairman Punjab Text Book Board Nawazish Ali, Project Director PMIU Imran Sikandar Baloch, Project Director DSD Nadeem Kiyani, representative of DFID Barbra Paye, Javed Malik, representative of World Bank Umbreen Arif besides Taimur Khan of MCK and Hina Khan of McKinsey attended the meeting.

Rana Mashhood Ahmed Khan said that the Punjab government would surely achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of the United Nations (UN) more efficiently as compared to other provinces of Pakistan. The educationists from Punjab will play an exemplary role to accomplish this gigantic task, he added.

He revealed that 74 percent kids of the age of five to nine years were studying in primary schools of the province, according to a survey conducted by PSLM Data of the Federal Bureau of Statistics in 2011. It is heartening to learn that this ratio has increased to 87 percent enrolment in June 2013 according to Neilsen house hold survey which is a third party enrolment data.

The minister expressed dissatisfaction over the fact that the dropout rate after enrolment of the kids was as high as 38 percent just after one year of their first enrolment in Montessori level.

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