NWFP govt to start second shift at primary schools
Peshawar: NWFP Education Department, in collaboration with United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has decided to start second shift in primary schools, especially for girls, in public sector's middle and high schools' buildings across the province.
NWFP Additional Secretary Education Qaiser Alam said on Friday that the provincial government had imposed 'educational emergency' in the province to improve literacy rate, for which the government was going to start second shift in primary schools across the province.
He added that the USAID will extend financial support for second shift schools. It is interested to start educational projects in NWFP, besides FATA to improve standard of education and literacy rate in the province.
To a question, he said, due to lack of resources the government was not in a position to establish the required number of primary schools and decided to start second shift at primary schools, mostly for girls, in middle and high schools' buildings. Alam said the existing schools have all the facilities and the government will have to hire separate staff only for running second shift schools. The teachers for these schools will be appointed on permanent and not contractual basis, he further said. The official said second shift schools would be started in mosques with the support of prayer leaders in those areas where government schools or buildings did not exist and prayer leaders would be appointed and paid to teach Islamyat subject. About situation of education, he said, firstly there was students' dropout at primary level only but now it was occurring at middle and high levels as well, as many students leave schools before reaching 10th grade. Daily Times
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