KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah on Thursday was informed by secretary school education Iqbal Durani that fifteen school buildings out of 25 under-construction English medium schools are ready and would be started by end of April.
The chief minister while presiding over a meeting of school education department also directed the education department to appoint six thousand junior elementary school teachers so that early childhood and comprehensive high schools program could be started.
The completed school buildings are in districts Shaheed Benazirabad, Sukkur, Larkana, Naushehroferoze, Sanghar, Khairpur, Mirpurkhas, Tando Mohammad Khan, Ghotki, Thatta, Badin, Sujawal, Matiari, Tando Allahyar and Jamshoro.
The schools which would be completed this are in district Hyderabad, Umerkot, Dadu, Qambar-Shahdadkot, Jacobabad, Tharparkar and Malir, while work on three schools in Shikarpur, Kashmore and Karachi would be started next year.
CM Sindh directed secretary education to invite expression of interest from leading educationists and educational institutions. He said these English medium schools would be operated by private management which would help establish the best schools in the public sector.
The government would bear all expenditures including tuition fee, text books, exercise material, registration examination fees and even the salaries of the teaching and non-teaching staff, while the private partner would have to operate the school management effectively.
The secretary informed that the formation of recruitment rules for new 6000 teachers was in process with the regulation wing. Each school would have 69 staff members including 39 teaching staff. The furniture for fifteen schools has been purchased, and every school would have fully equipped science and computer labs, library and standby generator.
The schools would be English medium and would be operated on Cambridge system. However, CM Sindh said that it was difficult to recruit best O-Level teachers in rural areas, and the task may be given to top educational institutions.
Minister Education Jam Mehtab Dahar and secretary school education were assigned the task to talk to leading educational institutions for running the management of these schools and then they would be selected through a competitive process.
The secretary said that six units out of 25 high schools would be ready by March, while nine others would be ready in December. The tendering process of the remaining ten schools is at an advance stage.
CM Sindh said that the teachers for early childhood education should be recruited through competitive process, and must be competent in English, science and mathematics. Therefore, there should be a comprehensive plan for capacity building of teachers, and the question papers for selection of teachers should be made accordingly.
