Punjab education budget | Homoeopathic exams

Over Rs25b for Punjab education
Lahore, June 11: The Punjab government allocated Rs 25.065 billion for the education sector for the new fiscal year under the Annual Development Programme 2012-2013.

This development budget for education sector is just 4.64 percent more than last year's original allocation i.e. Rs 23.9 billion. Unlike the original allocation the revised allocation remained just Rs 15.8 billion in 2011-2012.

The revised allocation is mentioned if a particular scheme is either reflected in ADP or the scheme is dropped later on. The revised allocation is visible evidence of the fact that many of the schemes reflected in original ADP were either dropped or were not workable, hence the budget was not released which resulted in considerable cut on the development side.

On the non-development side, the Punjab government earmarked a total of estimated Rs 29.425 billion thus total allocation (development and non-development) for education stands at Rs 54.490 billion for the fiscal year 2012-13. In FY 2011-2012 the government allocated Rs 25.594 billion non-development budget which turned out to be Rs 31.980 billion in the revised budget.

According to the breakup of development budget 2012-2013 for education sector, an amount of Rs 15 billion has been allocated for School Education, Rs 6.650 billion for Higher Education, Rs 0.7 billion for Special Education, Rs 0.915 billion for Literacy & Non Formal Basic Education and Rs 1.8 billion for Sports.

It is also important to mention here that budgetary allocations for Daanish School System, Punjab Educational Endowment Fund (PEEF), Punjab Education Foundation (PEF), Technical Education & Vocational Training Authority (TEVTA) and Provision of Laptops are not reflected in the budget for education sector. A sum of four billion rupees has been earmarked for provision of laptops. This scheme has been reflected in Special Programme/Initiatives. Similarly, Rs 2 billion has been allocated for Daanish School System which was Rs 3 billion in last budget. For TEVTA, Rs 1.5 billion has been earmarked which was Rs 2 billion last year while Rs 2 billion has been allocated for Punjab Educational Endowment Fund which was same in 2011-12. The Punjab Education Foundation (PEF) will get Rs 6.5 billion unlike previous year's Rs 6 billion.

The recently announced first ever IT university, Punjab Technology University (PTU), will get Rs 1 billion while Rs 1 billion has been allocated for provision of buses to the Women Colleges of Punjab.

If these all education related initiatives are included into allocation for education sector, the total allocation for education add upto a massive over Rs 43 billion on the development side. On the school side, the budget will be spent on eight ongoing schemes and 54 new schemes in the ADP 2012-2013. On the higher education side the budget will be spent on 234 ongoing schemes and 13 new schemes in 2012-2013.

In the Special Education the development budget will be spent on three ongoing and 11 new schemes.

A block allocation of Rs 65 million for new initiatives under special education and Rs 300 million for unfunded/ fast moving scheme is also part of the development budget for Special Education.

At the Literacy & Non Formal Basic Education side the development budget will be spent on five ongoing and three new schemes, including block allocation of Rs 188 million and Rs 360 million for unfunded/fast moving schemes and new initiatives under literacy sector while budget for Sports will be spent on 44 ongoing and 3 new schemes including creation of new facilities for sports with estimated cost of Rs 40 million.

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Homoeopathic exams to start from July 11
Rawalpindi: National Council for Homoeopathy has announced that the examination for homoeopathic medical colleges will start from July 11, 2012.

The schedule was announced in the examination committee meeting held under President Doctor Mahmood ul Haq Abbasi. Chairman Examination Committee Dr Mohammad Asif Khan, Co-Chairman Dr M.B. Jawed Awan, members Dr Mohammad Irfan Wali, Dr Tassadaq Hussain, Dr Waheed Ahmed, Dr Rao Ghulam Mustafa, Dr Mazar ul Haq, Dr Jamil Akhtar Ghauri, Dr Aslam Khan, Dr Faisal Saleem and Dr Naeem Hafeez attended the meeting.

It was decided that all the homoeopathic examinations across Pakistan will start from July 11, 2012. For this purpose the admission form will be accepted without late fees till June19 and with late fees till June 26 and with double fees till July 2,2012. The president said that the examination schedule has been dispatched to all homoeopathic medical colleges.

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11 percent of sanctioned posts in public high schools for girls lying vacant
Islamabad: 11% of the sanctioned teaching positions were vacant in government girls' high schools monitored in April with 160 positions lying unoccupied in 55 schools against the sanctioned 1,390 posts.

Fafen governance monitors, who visited 25 government girls' high schools in Punjab, 22 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP), 11 in Sindh and one in FATA reported that the highest percentage of vacant teaching positions was in Sindh (31%), followed by KP (13%), FATA (6%) and Punjab (5%). The occupancy rate of non-teaching positions was comparatively better. In 55 schools that shared information, 410 out of the total 450 sanctioned posts were occupied, leaving 9% positions vacant. As for certain support staff, there were peons in 57 of the 59 schools monitored, security guards in 51 and sanitary workers in 48 schools.

The attendance of teachers was better than that of students with 90% of the observed schools reporting attendance of more than 75% while 78% schools had such high percentage of students' attendance. The student-teacher ratio was also satisfactory with an average of 30 students-per-teacher. Among regions, Punjab had the lowest number of students-per-teacher (26), followed by Sindh and FATA (35 each) and KP (37). The number of students-per-teacher in all these regions was below the government set limit of 50 for high schools. Forty four per cent of the monitored schools were without libraries while 36% did not have laboratory equipment for science experiments. Another 32% schools lacked playgrounds and had no Physical Training Instructors (PTIs). Additionally, 14 percent schools had no arrangements for clean drinking water.

However, the report said that all the monitored schools were housed in proper buildings and all except four had boundary walls. Though, all schools had electricity connections, classrooms in three schools did not have fans. Classrooms of 91% schools were found clean; 95% had black or white boards; 80% had benches for students in all classrooms and 86% had chairs and tables for teachers.

During the January-March 2012 quarter, 31 visits were made by government/elected officials to the monitored schools. Among government officials, the Executive District Officer/Education made the most visits (14) while the number of such visits by other officials was 12. Two visits were made by MPAs while elected representatives, other than MPAs and MNAs, made three visits - two to schools in Punjab and one in Sindh. The news

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Schools as female parks
Rawalpindi: Government schools in Rawalpindi will be used as ladies parks in the evening. In this regard a notification has been issued by district coordinating officer. The order was passed in response to a district government call to use the schools as socialising centres. Women can use the schools for walk. To attract women to the project, the district government would contact women MPs as role models. Daily times

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