Rs284 million for Pakistani sector education improvement

Rs284m UK grant for education, health sectors




PESHAWAR : The Department for International Development (DFID) of United Kingdom will provide additional grants to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to improve the performance of health and education facilities in the province.

According to a handout, Buner and Dera Ismail Khan districts of the province has been selected for piloting the project at a cost of Rs284 million. The district coordination officers of both the districts, Mujeebur Rehman and Khan Bakhsh, signed a memorandum of understanding with representatives of DFID here on Thursday.

Provincial Minister for Elementary and Secondary Education Sardar Hussain Babak and secretaries of finance, health and education departments were also present on the occasion.

As per agreement, the amount earmarked by DFID will be released as budgetary support and an equivalent amount reflected in the 2011-12 budgets as an allocation to the districts.
The amount will be reflected as output based grants to the selected districts.

The districts, to be identified for the project, should fall under the 10 least developed districts. “The number of districts has been selected in such a manner that piloting the activity
is manageable and can bear fruitful results,” the handout said.

A detailed need assessment of the selected districts has been carried out through the staff of line departments and district officials. On the basis of the assessment, a baseline data has been collected.

The baseline data will also be collected to compare the progress of those districts, which are recipients of the grants, with the non-recipient ones.

“The recommendations of the third party evaluation will form basis for improving and replicating the systems in other districts,” the handout said.

In this connection, an implementation plan has been chalked out and the elementary and secondary education department has submitted the same to finance department along with budget plan for the release of allocated amount to the project.

After signing of the MoU, 50 per cent of the allocated amount will be released as first tranche to districts. The elections of parent teacher councils have been held and their training is in progress in both the pilot districts.
DAWN NEWS