Govt to bear community schools' expenditure for one year.

Byline: Kashif Abbasi

ISLAMABAD -- The federal government has decided to bear 100 per cent non-development expenditure - salaries and allowances - for one year of over 17,000 community schools which are going to be devolved to provinces.

The Ministry of Finance through an official letter dated Feb 25 stated that for the first year the federal government will bear 100pc expenditure of Basic Education Community Schools (BESC) and National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) schools followed by 75pc in the second year and 50pc in the third year.

Afterward, the provincial governments will take full responsibility.

The BESC and NCHD, which are subsidiary organisations of the Ministry of Federal Education, have been running 12,000 and over 5,000 schools, respectively.

Over 17,000 BESC and NCHD schools going to be devolved to provinces

These single-teacher schools have their large network in far-flung areas of the country, where students have no access to regular schools. These schools are also important for improving literacy rate of the country and bringing out-of-schools children to schools.

After 18th amendment, these schools should have been devolved to provinces but they remained neglected.

According to a decision of the federal government and Council of Common Interest (CCI) made in November last year, these schools will be devolved to provinces.

The Ministry of Finance in the letter added: 'As an incentive to the provinces for assuming the functions and taking the NCHD employees on their payroll, salaries and allowances may be funded 100pc by the federal government for the first 12 months immediately after the transfer. Thereafter, the federal government may fund up to 75pc for next year and 50pc for the third year following which the entire expenses may be borne by the provinces along with complete transfer of functions of NCHD and BESC to...