ISLAMABAD: Schools and colleges of the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) have been facing issues in the operations of their bus services because of the irregular release of funds and an absence of permanent staff.
At present, two girl colleges, Islamabad Model College for Girls (IMCG) in Sector F-7 and IMCG in Sector I-8 are not able to ply their buses, causing problems for students. The same situation occurred last year when the bus service was suspended for a few days due to the shortage of funds required to run them.
A FDE official claimed the issue faced by the aforementioned colleges had been resolved. “We have provided them funds and from Monday all buses will be on the road,” he said.
A couple of years ago, the issue of funds landed in the federal capital that had directed the FDE to manage the bus services on a cost-sharing basis. In light of that decision, the educational institutions were operating their bus service on a cost-sharing formula, but funding issues still persist, causing disruption in the facility.
Ministry says efforts underway for procurement of additional funds
During its previous from 2013 to 2018, the PML-N had provided 200 buses to FDE-run educational institutions without allocating an exclusive fuel quota and hiring drivers and cleaners for these buses. The operational issues faced by the bus service can be attributed to this negligence.
Later on, the federal government started providing funds for the bus service in the annual budget but the posts of drivers and cleaners remained vacant.
An FDE official claimed there was no shortage of funds. “Due to delay in the release of instalments, principals face issues while arranging fuel, but I have directed all principals to sort out this issue,” he said and added the instalment had been released. The official said that he would streamline this process in the coming days.
The FDE which supervises 432 schools and colleges has been facing a shortage of funds and its current deficit is around Rs7 billion. Last month, FDE acting director general Amjad Ahmed informed the caretaker education minister about the deficit being faced by the directorate.
“The current year’s deficit is about Rs7 billion. There are pending liabilities of Rs4 billion under the heads of the rental ceiling, leave encashment, operational cost, and salaries to daily wagers,” the minister was informed. The caretaker minister was also informed about vacant posts.
According to an official of the education ministry, Madad Ali Sindhi has been making every effort to procure additional funds for the FDE. “Our efforts are underway, hopefully soon we will get approval for additional funds,” he said.
Published in Dawn, October 20th, 2023
Source: dawn.com
