LAHORE – The Punjab government has allocated Rs31.30 billion for different sectors of education including higher education, school education, technical and special education etc for the fiscal year 2012-13.
Budget documents shows an increase of 15 percent in the education budget of 2012-13 as compare to the last year, 2011-12. The Punjab government had allocated Rs 27.14 billion for the education sector last year.
According to the budget documents, the provincial government has allocated Rs 15 billion for School Education, Rs 6.65 billion for Higher Education, Rs 700 million for special education and Rs 915 million for Literacy for the fiscal year 2012-13.
Punjab government also allocated Rs 4 billion for provision of free laptops to 125,000 students, Rs 2 billion for Danish Schools, Rs 6.5 billion for Punjab Education Foundation (PEF), Rs 2 billion for Punjab Education Endowment Fund (PEEF), Rs1 billion to establish Punjab Technology University and Rs 1.5 billion for internship programme which would provide internships to 50,000 graduates.
It is proposed in the budget that Rs 904.286 million will be spent on Pre-Primary education in 2012-13 against the revised allocation of Rs 764.83 million in 2011-12 in this sector. This year, Punjab government has allocated Rs 10,899.93 million for Secondary Education Affairs and Services against the revised allocation of Rs 15, 650.108 million in 2011-12 whereas Rs 15, 904.214 million has been allocated for Tertiary Education Affairs and Services against the revised allocation of Rs 13, 529.877 million in 2011-12 in this sector.
Punjab Government has allocated Rs 160.966 million for Education Services Non Definable by Level against the revised allocation of Rs 381.204 million in previous year.
 Rs 239.435 million are allocated for Subsidiary Services to Education against the revised allocation of Rs 295.123 million in 2011-12. An amount of Rs 3,198.437 million has been allocated for Education Affairs, Services Not Elsewhere Classified against the revised allocation of Rs 2,952.783 million in 2011-2012.  
In the budget speech, the provincial finance minister Mujtaba Shuja-ur-Rahman, who is also Education Minister, told that the Punjab government had spent Rs 8 billion under Punjab Educational Endowment Fund till now and this year Rs 2 billion more had been allocated for this purpose.
The minister told that the provincial government had established six Danish schools in the province whereas eight more were under construction that would be completed till August 2012. And, he said, for the fiscal year 2012-13, Punjab government had allocated Rs 2 billion for the establishment of eight more Danish schools in the areas of Wehari, Bhakar, Liyya and Lodhran.
The Punjab finance minister also announced in his budget speech that all educational institution including private and public sectors schools, colleges and universities, who charged Rs 5000 or more monthly fee, would allocate 10 percent seats for poor students.
 The institution will bear all fee including tuition fee of these 10 percent students, the minister added. He, however, did not address the issue of heavy fee being charged by private educational institutions. The minister said Punjab government would recruit 16,000 teachers for Science and Mathematics in order to fill the vacant vacancies of the teachers in schools.