Minister Emphasizes On Measures To Address Issues Affecting Quality Education

Federal Education Minister Madad Ali Sindhi has emphasized on the need of undertaking reforms in the school, education and university education, recalling that in his childhood and youth the public sector education used to produce brilliant students

HYDERABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 6th Oct, 2023) Federal Education Minister Madad Ali Sindhi has emphasized on the need of undertaking reforms in the school, education and university education, recalling that in his childhood and youth the public sector education used to produce brilliant students.

At the Hyderabad press club on Friday, the minister acknowledged that the government schools from where his generation received education were no longer delivering the same quality of education.

According to him, though the government was releasing funds, the quality of education was still not improving.

The minister also referred to the problem of over staffing, pointing out that in a recent case some 50 retired employees of the Federal urdu University, Karachi, were not being paid their pensions. At the same time, however, the varsity was hiring 50 new staff and in that regard a syndicate meeting was also being held, he added.

Sindhi said that he removed that university's vice chancellor and directed the acting VC to resolve the issue of pensions on priority.

He informed that during his visit to Sindh University, Jamshoro, on Friday he asked the VC Dr Muhammad Siddique Kalhoro about the quality of doctor of philosophy (PhD) education. However, the minister added, he did not receive a satisfactory reply as the administration was focused over shortage of funds.

The minister said, the Higher Education Commission (HEC) was constructing 3 hostels in the SU.

"Someone has translated and copied a book from Urdu to Sindhi and obtained a PhD degree. What inquiry should we conduct now because they will get the sack," he said.

He apprised that the HEC was providing scholarship cheques to a number of students of the universities.

He told that the HEC provided Rs 886 million funds to Shaheed Allah Bux Soomro University of Art, Design and Heritage, Jamshoro. During his visit to the varsity, he asked the administration to at least publish a booklet about the personality Shaheed Allah Bux Soomro on whose name the university had been established. He was among the leading political figures during the independence movement, he recalled.

"There is no path to progress for Pakistan other than education," he underlined, lamenting that the people had considered all institutions as only jobs providing organizations with no objectives. He disclosed that his ministry will organized a conference of all the provincial education ministers in Islamabad on October 16.

According to him, the huddle would deliberate on two crucial issues including the quality of education and the out of school children. Commenting on the alleged murder of a minor maid in the residence of her employer in Ranipur, Khairpur, the minister said such children who had been deprived of education and thrust in throes of child labour abound in the province. Moreover, he added, there were still many schools where the teachers did not attend the classes.