LAHORE: Punjab School Education Minister Murad Raas has said that the province would upgrade as many as 800 secondary schools to a high school level in 36 districts of the province.
Speaking during a news programme on Wednesday, Raas said that under the “Insaf Afternoon School Programme” the ministry upgraded 1,227 elementary schools to a higher level in June last year.
According to the minister, he took the initiative to increase the’ enrollment after being informed of the school drop out rate that at the primary level stood at “shocking” 70 percent.
“When I received the data, I thought building new schools would take us nearly 2-3 years and millions of rupees would be spent on it, which we don’t have,” he said.
“To overcome this challenge, we upgraded primary schools to elementary and asked the teachers — who give tuitions in the evening — to teach classes 6,7, and 8 [in the second shift],” he said, adding that as compensation, the government provided them with an honorarium.
The elementary schools functioning in the afternoon brought 22,000 students back to the classrooms, he said, adding the majority of them were girls.
“We had to expand this pilot project and open 800 schools, but were unable to do so due to Covid-19,” he said.
“We’d open new schools this year.”
