Lahore:
Punjab faces a shortage of public schools with 38,000 institutions available for a population of 130 million inhabitants. According to a report by a non -governmental organization, the Population Council, the lack of infrastructure in public schools and their unavailability are the main reasons for a high abandonment rate.
The report said the province needed around 19,000 new schools over the next 15 years and stressed that the Punjab government should allocate maximum funds in the coming budget to build more schools.
Although the increase in the population of Punjab has created many problems for the government, the shortage of public sector schools has become a big problem that hinders efforts to increase the rate of literacy in the province.
The Population Council declared in its last report that the shortage of public schools associated with the population growth of the province is a matter of concern.
He highlighted the need for 19,000 new schools over the next 15 years to educate the millions of children.
While publishing the report, the Council deplored a small budget for children and demanded that the government disclose many funds to build schools and hospitals for them.
According to the report, there are 10 million children in the age group of five to 15 years of the school.
The province’s population growth rate is more than 2.5% and the ratio requires that 19,000 additional schools be built over the next 15 years.
The educational community is confronted with obstacles to the exit of schoolchildren in public schools, mainly due to the shortage of institutions and the lack of facilities.
A senior official of the Punjab school education department said there were around 38,000 public schools in the 36 Punjab districts. Among them, 21,702 are primary, 7,200 in the middle, 8,000 high schools high and 800 higher. The official said that schools were facing a shortage of funds and facilities. The construction of new schools was not a priority in a long period. The latest new school in Lahore was built in 2011.
He said that there are many housing companies in Lahore and in other cities where no public school works.
He said the government was pursuing the outsourcing of public schools while ignoring the opposition to policy by teachers.
The official said that the helpless people suffered the most because there were 10 million children outside the school who wanted to study, but government policies were not favorable to them.
The secretary general of the Punjab teachers’ union, Rana Liaqat Ali, “it is obvious that there is a need for more schools in the public sector and that is why we went to the roads to oppose outsourcing, but the government has not considered our concerns.”
He added: “International NGOs also highlighted the issue and demanded more public schools, we therefore ask the government to examine the question in the interest of future generations.
He said not only schools, but new government and government universities were also necessary for Punjab.
The teacher chief expressed hope that the government will prioritize school projects in the upcoming budget for Punjab.
