LAHORE: Punjab Education Minister Murad Raas said Wednesday that the province would upgrade as many as 800 secondary schools to the higher levels in a bid to improve the education system.
Speaking during the"Subah Say Agay" show on Hum News, Raas said that under the "Insaf Afternoon School Programme" the education ministry has upgraded several secondary schools to higher levels already.
The minister added that he took the initiative to increase the schools' enrollment as he was informed that a "shocking" 70% of pupils dropped out after completing primary school education.
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"So when I got the data, I thought that building 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 [higher levels] and asked the teachers — who give tuitions in the evening — to teach classes 6,7, and 8," he said, adding that as compensation, the government provided them with an honorarium.
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The schools that function in the afternoon, according to Raas, brought 22,000 students back to the classroom, adding that 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," he said. "We'd open new schools this year."