QUETTA: Balochistan Assembly Speaker Raheela Hameed Durrani has urged the provincial government to evolve a mechanism for monitoring implementation of the projects launched to promote education.

Speaking at a seminar jointly organised by two NGOs Alif Ailaan and the Society for Community Strengthening and Promotion of EducationBalochistan -here on Sunday, she stressed the need for restoring people`s trust in government-run educational institutions.

Ms Durrani suggested that the government should establish a forum of think tanks comprising retired senior educationists and other experts to prepare a 50-year programme for promotion of education.

She said that only allocation of funds to education sector was not enough and the government should develop a vision for promotion of education and work in the direction set out by that vision.She said the government should strive to improve standard of education in Balochistan without which the province could not come at par with other provinces in education sector.

The speaker also underlined the need for public-private partnership in education sector and said that without teachers` training one could not think of improving standard of education.

The Adviser to the Chief Minister on Information, Law and Parliamentary Affairs, Sardar Raza Mohammad Barech, said that lack of assessment of learning at primary and middle levels affected the outcome of schooling children. `Besides, it is equally important to invest in teachers` training programme, particularly in mathematics and science.

He spoke about the status of education and conditions prevailing in schools in Balochistan and said that though the government had accorded priority to the education sector but still it needed to do more.

Mr Barech said that 2.5 million chil-dren of school-going age had not been enrolled in schools in Balochistan where half of human settlements had no school.

However, he was happy to note that the provincial government was working on establishment of more schools with maximum facilities.

The representatives of the two NGOs informed the audience that the government had allocated Rs49.11 billion to education sector in the budget for 2016-17, an increase of about one per cent from the last year`s allocation of Rs48.38bn. This year`s allocation for education comes to 17pc of the total budget. On the other hand, allocation for development projects in education sector has been reduced by 36pc, from Rs10.02bn in 2015-16 to Rs6.4bn of this year.

As a result, they said, the allocations for primary and secondary education had taken the major hit a significant reduction of 71pc and 78pc, respectively. But the allocation for tertiary education has been increased by 49pc.