The Senate Standing Committee on Education on Monday directed the education ministry to ensure the quality of contents of the textbooks and also make sure that these are available to the students at affordable prices.
The committee, which met at the Parliament House with Senator Mrs Razina Alam Khan in the chair, observed that availability of quality and error free textbooks to the students is vital for spread of the education and literacy in the country.
She hoped that the process of the printing of textbooks would be streamlined and substandard books would be eliminated. She informed that the mid-term review meeting of the committee would be held in December each year to discuss budgetary matters.
The committee also called on the provinces to implement the decision taken in the Inter-Provincial Education Ministers Meeting regarding payment of teaching allowance to teachers.
The committee observed that it would be a major incentive in bringing about qualitative improvement in education being imparted. It was, however, recommended that this allowance be made performance and qualification based.
Earlier, the Secretary Ministry of Education made a presentation on National Textbook and Learning Materials Policy and Plan of Action. He informed that deregulation of printing of textbooks was being undertaken in pursuance of a cabinet decision.
He also informed about the major objectives of the new policy, which included improvement in the quality of textbooks at all levels at affordable prices.
Minister for Education, Lieutenant General Javed Ashraf Qazi (Retd) informed the meeting that all stakeholders were taken on board and consulted before adopting the new text book policy and the issues relating to it where discussed threadbare.
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