Destination of progress and development will be achieved by imparting latest education to the youth- Chief Minister Punjab Shehbaz Sharif

Chief Minister Punjab Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif here today presided over a high level meeting in which measures taken to promote education and continuing educational programs were discussed. Addressing the meeting, the chief minister said the destination of progress and development will be achieved by imparting latest education to the youth and the Punjab government has taken revolutionary measures for this purpose. He said 100 per cent school enrolment target will achieved by 2018 and no child will remain deprived of education by then. He said attendance of teachers has increased due to the measures taken by the government. He said basic facilities in schools have been provided in 52000 schools by investing Rs. 40 billion while a sum of Rs. 16 billion has been spent for the reconstruction of dilapidated school buildings and 36000 new classrooms are being constructed by spending billions of rupees. He said school labs have been constructed in 6000 schools while lakhs of laptops have been given to students in a transparent way and lakhs more laptops will be distributed during the current year as well while tablets are also being provided in schools.

The Chief Minister said merit and transparency have been promoted in Punjab in every field and two lakhs and 20 thousands teachers have been recruited purely on merit and this year 80,000 more teachers will be recruited. He said 14 Daanish schools have been established where top quality education is being imparted to students from poor families that have brought about a revolution in poor and undeveloped areas. He said the Punjab Education Endowment Fund has been set up to provide financial assistance to students from poor families and one lakh and 75 thousands have been benefited from the biggest education scholarship of the South Asia. He said thousands of students have become doctors, engineers and bankers by getting scholarship from the PEEF. He said from the Khadam-e-Punjab Zawar-e-Taleem Program girl students of the matric class are getting monthly scholarship of Rs1000 in 16 districts and a sum of Rs4 billion is being spent every year on this project and four lakh and 62 thousands students are benefitting from this program. He said from voucher scheme of Punjab Education Foundation 22 lakh girl and boy students are getting education and students get free books every year in government schools.

He said 87000 children working on brick kilns have been enrolled in schools and free books, bags, uniforms and monthly scholarship of Rs1000 is being provided to each student previously working on kilns. He said solar lamps have been provided to three lakhs students purely on merit and the Punjab government has also made a plan to run 20,000 schools deprived of electricity on solar power and this program will be completed during the current year. He said excellent programs have been launched for the position holder students and they are being sent abroad for visit of foreign universities and are also being given cash scholarships. He said the exceptional feature of education programs of Punjab is that students of all federating units have their due share in them.
Provincial Ministers Rana Mashhood Ahmed Khan, Syed Ali Gillani, adviser Dr Umer Saif, chairman Punjab Education Foundation Engineer Qamarus Salam, Additional Chief Secretary, Chairman P&D, Secretaries of concerning departments and concerning officials were also present on the occasion.