Briefing about the decisions taken in a meeting recently held with President General Pervez Musharraf in the chair, he said, the meeting identified key areas to revamp the existing education system, which it believed bitterly failed to deliver.
The government, he said, has decided to register and monitor all the private schools operating in the country on the lines of Madaris registration.
He said the government has also decided to reduce number of educational boards operating in different provinces because they were lacking uniformity and creating confusion.
Qazi said it was also decided in the meeting that instead of Education Sector Reform (ESR) Programme, President's ESR education would be launched to make it more effective and administration of district colleges would be given back to the provincial governments. He said the performance of these colleges deteriorated sharply under the management of district governments.
He said statistical division and the ministry have decided to start education census from November to collect exact information about the schools functioning across the country. The collected information, the minister said, would then be passed on to the Management Information Centre.
Qazi hoped that on the basis of this information, the educational data of all the schools, number of students there and teachers would be available at one place. He said a large number of schools in all the provinces were missing basic facilities and it was unanimously decided to involve army in the provision of these facilities.
The minister said that funds would be provided through the federal ministry, whereas provincial government would identify such schools and reconstruction work would be assigned to the army.
A committee headed by an additional secretary would monitor the entire process, he added. Moreover, teachers, headmasters, and principals would be imparted necessary management training both at provincial and federal levels.
More than 240,000 adult laterally centres would be opened by the Education Ministry in all the provinces, besides setting up National Technical and Vocational Training Authorities with the help of business communities in their respective areas.
The minister said polytechnic institutes would be established in every district to impart technical education to the youths.
Qazi said a number of decisions would be taken in the forthcoming inter-ministerial meeting being held in Karachi in November. The meeting would decide about the composite session of Higher Secondary Education, however, in principle, it was unanimously agreed in the last meeting that academic year would start from end of August instead of April.
The minister said the participants of the meeting were also unanimous on revision of curriculum to meet international standards.
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, all the provincial chief ministers, Higher Education Commission (HEC) chairman, finance secretary, two corps commanders, officials of the Finance Ministry and National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB) chairman attended the meeting.