LAHORE: The provincial government of Punjab will present a bill on education reforms in line with the Article 25-A of the Constitution - which gives every child between the age of five and 16 the right to free and compulsory education in March 2014, Education Minister Rana Mashood Ahmad Khan said yesterday.
Khan said the government was working on a plan of action to be announced along with the education policy. He said the proposed reforms included regulation and monitoring of private schools in the province and developing a monitoring mechanism to ensure quality education at all schools in the Punjab.
“We are working on a comprehensive legislation on education reforms instead of taking up piecemeal law-making,” he said. Khan said the Article 25-A legislation involved several areas of a child’s development and cross-departmental input was required to look at the issue in a holistic way.
“There is no intention to delay the legislative process it is just a complex issue being dealt with seriously.” The education minister said the government was already following the provisions of Article 25-A. He said the Punjab Education Foundation (PEF) and the Punjab Educational Endowment Fund (PEEF) had been set up to this end.
The PEEF has provided nearly 41,000 scholarships since its inception in 2009. The PEEF, established in 2004, is now operational in all 36 districts of the Punjab and has over 3,000 partner schools.
INTERNEWS
