LAHORE: New classrooms and extra washrooms are going up in 73 government schools across Lahore, and the city’s commissioner is touring the sites himself to see that the work matches what has been paid for.
Commissioner Nauman Yousaf visited Government Boys High School, Harbanspura, where 2,200 pupils are enrolled, as part of a continuing round of inspections of works carried out through school management councils. He examined the computer labs and the early-years kids’ room, then checked the material being used in rooms still under construction.
The chief executive officer of the District Education Authority, Lahore, briefed him on construction quality alongside the engineers. School administrations, school councils and sub-engineers review progress every day, the briefing said.
Mr Yousaf said new rooms and washrooms were being added according to each school’s enrolment. He told officials to finish on deadline and to standard, to make the sections under construction completely safe and to see that students face no difficulty while building goes on.
He was equally firm on technology. Computer labs must be made student-friendly, he said, because keeping pace with the modern world leaves no alternative. Classrooms built under the early childhood programme, he added, were attractive, well finished and suited to young children.
The chief minister’s focus, the commissioner said, is on contemporary learning and better infrastructure in government schools.
That focus has been written into policy over the past six weeks. Punjab has made artificial intelligence a compulsory school subject, which turns a working computer lab from a luxury into a requirement. It is building 4,200 new toilets in government schools and has released Rs37 billion to the School Education Department.
Oversight is tightening in step. Last month the department ordered a physical inspection of every school in the province by assistant education officers, covering classrooms, washrooms, wiring and drinking water. Punjab also plans to hire army personnel as school monitoring officers in 22 districts.
The commissioner is an apt inspector for this kind of spending. Before taking charge of Lahore Division he served as the provincial government’s special secretary for budget, the desk that signs off the money he is now watching being turned into walls and roofs.
School management councils bring parents and teachers into decisions on small works at each campus. Their involvement, with daily checks by sub-engineers, is meant to catch poor material before it is plastered over.
Officials said the visits to other schools on the list will continue.
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