Taseer tweets against CM's "Daanish"

By Khalid Khattak

GOVERNOR Punjab Salmaan Taseer, who is an ardent follower of internet-based social network, Twitter, is known for his bracing remarks on country’s politics and many other social issues online.

However in his tweets made during the last week he touched upon two important academic issues. While the one is related to Punjab government’s “flagship” educational endeavor, Daanish Schools, the other is linked to increasing ratio of girl students in institutes of higher learning.

Governor Punjab’s comments about the Daanish Schools are evident of the fact that he is totally against the project, a brainchild of Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif and which is being dubbed “the poor man’s Aitchison”.

According to him the Punjab government is spending Rs 4 billion on four Daanish Schools when thousands of public sector schools in the province are without basic facilities of boundary walls and electricity etc.

Mr Taseer’s tweet (available at) reads “Punjab Govt is spending Rs 4bn on 4 Danish Schools whereas there r 14 thousand schools without walls roofs electricity gas…...”

The project has drawn appreciation from some quarters, as it promises quality education to the children of disadvantaged groups of society and is being started from backward areas of Southern Punjab.

Nonetheless the project has been facing immense criticism too by academic circles who fear it will not serve the purpose of promoting the cause of imparting quality education at a wider level.

They are critical of the Punjab government’s initiative arguing there is a need to develop an excellent system of schools as according to them development of some excellent schools in the system will not serve the purpose.

They suggest that instead of focusing some selected schools over 60,000 public schools, most of which are lacking basic facilities like boundary walls, clean drinking water facility, electricity and toilets etc, should be upgraded on a priority basis.

The other important subject touched upon by Salmaan Taseer in his tweet reads “As Chancellor of Punjab Universities can say a quiet revolution taking place. On an open merit system more than 50% of students are female.”

He has termed the increasing female enrolment “a quiet revolution”. Nonetheless the academic circles as well as social scientists are quite worried about the developing situation saying this growing trend might result in shortfall of manpower in future.

They argue often prevailing social norms limit the active participation of women in mainstream and despite having high professional qualification girls do not join professions saying this need immediate attention of those at the helm.

The academic circles also argue that efforts made by parents, teachers, girls themselves and huge investment by the government goes into waste when a professionally qualified girl does not join a profession she has studied over the years.

They also suggest the government to fix quota for boys and girls to maintain the balance besides creating maximum awareness and taking solid measures to ensure that females, especially those getting professional degrees, do take active part in their professional lives.

The story was published in The News International, Lahore on December 6, 2010. However it did not appear in online version of the newspaper.

Army takes lead in flood-hit schools reconstruction

By Khalid Khattak

LAHORE: The Pakistan Army, using public donations fast, has left the Punjab government far behind in the reconstruction of flood-hit public sector schools.

While the big heads in Punjab government are exhausting their energies in file work and the petty ones waiting for release of funds, the army is doing actual field work and has so far repaired 487 partially damaged schools in four flood-hit districts of the province.

The districts where the schools have been repaired are Dera Ghazi Khan with 89 schools, Muzaffargarh 184, Rajanpur 141 and Layyah 73 schools.

According to sources in the School Education Department, the only contribution from the department in the task was the active part played by the newly recruited educators who worked hard in the whole process and extended the maximum support to the army. They said the amount used for repair was public donations the army received for the flood affectees from philanthropists and common people.



The sources further said the schools repaired were partially damaged, including damaged boundary walls, furniture, drinking water facility, toilets and doors, etc, adding that after repair the schools were also whitewashed and were now fully functional.

An official of the department said that as per estimates, an amount of Rs 63 million had been spent on the repair work of the damaged schools of district Muzaffargarh alone. He said the army was now working to repair partially damaged schools of district Rahimyar Khan. He said the department had initially sought around Rs 1 billion for the damaged schools of Muzaffargarh, however, now an amount of Rs 63 million had been subtracted from the said amount now.



The official confirmed that no repair work could be started by the Punjab government so far, adding that it would start as soon as the required amount was released. He said in the first phase, the damaged schools of district Muzaffargarh would be repaired.

When contacted, Secretary Schools Muhammad Aslam Kamboh confirmed that the provincial government had yet to start repair work of the flood-damaged schools. He said the release of around Rs 1 billion was likely for the damaged schools in the coming days.

He, however, claimed that academic activities had resumed at schools of all the flood-hit districts of the province right after summer vacation. He said in the areas where schools were not functional, the department had made arrangements in rented buildings and nearby houses, adding that many tent schools were also established to continue educational activities. He said the students had been provided new textbooks and majority of teachers had also been provided teaching kits.



It is pertinent to mention here that the Punjab government had identified around 4,193 schools which were either fully or partially damaged by floods in different parts of the province. Of these, over 700 schools were completely damaged while 3,420 were partially damaged by the floods while, interestingly, out of partially damaged schools, over 1,200 schools had been damaged owing to the stay of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) who were provided shelter there.

Source: The News International
02 December 2010.