The World Bank has pledged to spend $200 million on health and education sectors in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP)
The World Bank will spend $80 million on education and another $80 million will be spent on health. The minister of health said that this fund will further strengthen the ongoing “revolutionary” reforms in health and will also help in enhancing the health care commission capacity and improve the quality of health centers.
Under the public partnership, the private sector will be linked to the health department, and capacity building of the health foundation in terms of contract management is also part of the project. It is hoped that the project will improve the lives of 40 million people in KP. The health minister said that the pilot phase of the project would be implemented in Peshawar, Swabi, Haripur, and Nowshera districts.
Under the project, Rs15 billion will be spent on improving the infrastructure of the health department. It was informed that work has begun on re-modeling more than a thousand basic health centers and empowering medical officers in each district. They are completely independent in making their own economic decisions. Capacity building and renovation of more than 250 health centers have been completed,” the minister said.
Provincial Education Minister Shahram Khan Tarakai said that health and education are the “top priority” of the provincial government and this project will bring “revolutionary” change in both sectors. Tarakai said that $115 million would be spent on education under this project and this program would be implemented in four districts of the province -Peshawar, Nowshera, Haripur, and Swabi.
He said that under the program 1,400 classrooms would be constructed in schools of selected districts that would provide education to more than 56,000 children. “While 200 primary schools will be upgraded to middle and 80 schools from middle to high schools under the program.” Moreover, the minister said, state-of-the-art 1,000 Early Childhood Education Rooms for young children will also be constructed. Solar panels will be provided to 2,160 schools, 150-second shift schools and 327 Accelerated Learning Program Centers will also be established.
The Minister furthered that under this program 500 master trainers, 1,000 teachers of selected schools, and 200 officers of Education Directorate Qualitative Wing would also be trained.
