LAHORE: Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz has ordered the necessary authorities to give special education facilities to students with disabilities in at least one government school every district, in addition to announcing the creation of a transgender school at the division level.
These choices were made at a meeting to review the province’s planned school education reforms.
CM Nawaz declared, “Schools for transgender [community] will be established at divisional level,” while presiding over the review meeting.
Fascinatingly, transgender schools were formerly located in nine out of eleven divisions in Punjab. The previous PTI government spearheaded the program, overseen by Murad Raas, the Punjab Minister for School Education at the time.
These schools were already founded by the previous government in eight of the eleven divisions.
Principal Alisha Sherazi of Trans Educational School System in Multan informed Dawn that no government representative had gotten in touch with them regarding the creation of transgender schools because they were already established in D.G. Khan, Gujrat, Rawalpindi, Rawalpindi, Sargodha, Faisalabad, Gujrat, Multan, and Bahawalpur. She said that only the Lahore-based one was shut down later.
Transgender woman Alisha Sherazi, a former UNDP consultant who completed her MPhil in Education, Planning, and Management at Burhanuddin Zakaria University, revealed that three schools—D.G. Khan, Multan, and Bahawalpur—were providing vocational training to transgender people. The principal said that while other schools concentrated on academics, those four labs were set up for IT, sewing, cooking, and makeup classes.
Alisha noted that the administration was unsure of the precise number of members of the transgender community in the Punjab.
CM Maryam Nawaz gave pertinent officials instructions during the meeting to establish a new, all-inclusive process for choosing CEOs, DEOs, and DDEOs in each district that adheres to worldwide best practices.
She also observed that the distribution of textbooks to schools was delayed. Nonetheless, the chief minister was given assurances by the officials present at the conference that textbooks will be sent to every school by May. According to them, 41% of the textbook supply had already been fulfilled. She was informed that textbooks would be available in classrooms by February of the following year.
A brand-new children’s book about environmental pollution and climate change was also given to the CM.
Speakers at the meeting included Senator-elect Pervaiz Rashid, MPA Sania Ashiq, chief secretary, senior minister Marriyum Aurangzeb, information minister Azma Zahid Bukhari, and other pertinent officials. Minister for School Education Rana Sikandar Hayat was also present.
