Inter-Provincial Minister Education Conference gets underway today
- April 28, 2015, 6:11 pm
- National News
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HQ City Report
QUETTA: Two-day Inter-Provincial Ministers Education Conference is scheduled to get underway today (Monday) in the provincial capital.
The Education Ministers from all over the four provinces as well as the senior high ups of the Education departments and the Ministry would be attending the vital moot on education in Quetta.
Governor Balochistan, Muhammad Khan Achakzai is likely to be the chief guest at inaugural session of the conference.
The conference would focus on the early child education, National Education Policy and National Children Policy.
The Balochistan Education Sector Plan (BESP) 2013-2018 would also be launched in the conference.
The launching ceremony would be held tomorrow (Tuesday) in which the Chief Minister is likely to be the chief guest.
It may be mentioned here that the BESP had been developed by the Policy and Planning Implementation Unit (PPIU) on the basis of a detailed ‘Situation Analysis’ undertaken from July 2011 to January 2012 with the assistance of the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) and United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Needless to mention here is that Balochistan has a large number of out of school children, high dropout rates, wide gender disparities in education indicators and poor quality of teaching (and learning) in the classroom.
These challenges required an organized response, and so the BESP had been prepared as the instrument to manage the prioritization, planning, execution, monitoring and review of education policies and strategies.
The document covers a five-year period with provisions for periodic (annual) revision based on monitoring of the implementation process. Provision for a midterm evaluation has also been included.
Monitoring of the sector plan had been placed under a high profile oversight body led by the Chief Secretary of the province. Technical level committees have also been envisaged. A set of indicators for monitoring was also developed and included in the Performance Assessment Framework.
The BESP derives its vision from the recently inserted Article 25A in the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan which has made education for children between ages 5 and 16 a fundamental right. The Article allows provinces to legislate for implementation of the provisions as per their own circumstances.
The BESP is an important step towards achievement of the requirements of Article 25A. The Plan, in its targets, falls short of the requirements because of the huge challenges, which would require time and resources that go beyond the five year period of the current BESP.
