'Billions for acquiring property for Orange Line; no funds for schools up-gradation'

LAHORE (PR) - Rs 165 billion allocated for Orange Line Train and 20,000 million allocated for land compensation to extend roads for orange line train but nothing is allocated to extend old public schools of Lahore.

Government released billions in last seven days for property compensation of orange train. Due to population increase many schools of congested Lahore are over populated and are suffering due to no extra space available for extension of school premises.

Communities expected to donate land for school’s expansion, while the government is committing billions of rupees for land acquisition for orange line said by Mubeen Sulttan ISF.

Lahore education budget tracking convention was organized by Alif Ailaan in collaboration with Kafka Welfare Organization at hotel one mall road Lahore. The purpose of session was to discuss education budget challenges and barriers with its utilization tracking to know the status of education.

MPA Lubna Faisal, MPA Farzana Butt, Faizullah Tareen Director Elementary Punjab, DEO Hasnat, Rana Ubaid PMIU, Najma Afzal MPA, Saqlain Anwar, Rao Kashif Raheem MPA, Ifat Miraj MPA, Fatima Fareeha MPA, MPA Khola Amjad, Fozia Ayub MPA Attended as a guest speakers.

MPA Lubna Faisal said NSB fund of public schools at bedian road is not released yet.  Monitoring system of PMIU is improving day by day. All duties are not associated with MPAs all stake holders shouls play their role. Jamil Najam Tamgai Imtiaz said 10.4 Million budget of furniture is not utilized in 2014 and government schools suffered.

Budget should be provided for teacher empowerment and incentives. Teachers are not trained how to spend non salary budget said by Najma Afzal MPA PMLN.  Executive Director Indus Foundation Said extraordinary efforts and priority is rewuired to improve status of education and budget challenges.

Umair Asif Alif Ailaan Regional Education Activist said, Government policies/legislations are no more than lips services if not backed by budgetary provisions.

NSB and Development budgets released in January 2016 with delay of six months and still schools are facing problems of fund release; such delays are a big hurdle in implementation of article 25-A.

Lahore has allocated 4% NSB and 7% development budget for 2015-2016 while 89% is allocated for salary budget. For 51.7 % enrolled girls there are only 49% schools while for 48.20% enrolled boys 51% boy’s schools. 2, 90,000 children are out of school in Lahore district and Female literacy rate is 21% low in rural areas which are 15% for boys.

According to alif ailaan district education ranking 2015 31% children drop out from school and 16% public school building conditions are not satisfactory Said by ****.

Punjab Public Finance Report showed Punjab education budget has not a different scenario. In 2014-15, fiscal year Punjab allocated 273 billion education budget but 20% current and 48% development provincial budget remained unused.  51% school education Punjab development budget remained unused and it is 15% for current budget.

Decline of school education Punjab budget for development was 3% in 2012-13 and 24% in 2013-14. Decline of school education budget (current) was 3% in 2012-13 and 0% in 2013-2014. School management committees got 700 million budgets but only 534.97 million was used in yr 2014-15 Said by .

Comparison of school education Punjab development and non-development budget shows School Education Punjab Dev budget increased 11% in 2013-14 and decline 24%, increased 6% in 2014-15 & 51% remained unused.

Non-Dev budget comparison shows 5% budget was increased in 2013-14 and 0% remained unused, 36% budget was increased in 2014-15 and 15% remain unused. In current year, school education budget Punjab increased 18% (Dev) and 107% (Non-Dev) but it is of no use if it will remain unused.

Government needs to increase education budget to 4% of GDP while taking it as priority and should assure its full utilization at required places.