PARIS, NOV 02 (DNA) – Muhammad Baligh ur Rehman Federal Minister for Education and Professional Training has said that Pakistan has set in place a comprehensive accountability and monitoring mechanism for financing and budgeting of the education sector.

The Minister said this during his intervention at the high level ministerial panel discussion on “Accountability in the Financing of Education” at the on-going 39^th session of UNESCO General Conference held at UNESCO headquarter in Paris, yesterday.

Ambassador of Pakistan to France and Permanent Delegate of Pakistan to UNESCO Moin ul Haque was also present during the discussions.

The Minister said that the comprehensive financial accountability mechanism in the country includes the democratic oversight, participatory good governance, activation of school management committees, observing stringent budgetary financial accounting and auditing mechanism, procurement rules and merit based inductions.

The Minister added that these efforts have translated into enhanced budgetary allocation for education sector, increased enrolment in schools and improvement in the schools infrastructure during the last three years.

The Federal Minister also held a bilateral meeting with Hon. Dato’ seri Mahdzir Khalid, Minister of Education, Malaysia on the sidelines of 39^th UNESCO General Conference. Both sides agreed to work together to further enhance students and faculty exchange programs between the two countries.

Muhammad Baligh ur Rehman also held bilateral meeting with his Iranian counterpart Dr. Mojtaba Shariaty-Niasar, Deputy Minister of Science, Research and Technology. The Minister said that Pakistan’s greatly values its relationship with Iran which are based upon common shared cultural social and historical values and both the countries are and will continue to benefit from each other’s strengths specially in the skilled based higher education.

Federal Minister also met with Mr. Qian Tang, Assistant Director General UNESCO (Education) and assured him that Pakistan is fully committed to attain the SDG-4 20130.