Lahore: Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif has approved the assignment of the additional portfolio of the Literacy and Non-Formal Basic Education Department to Provincial Minister for School Education Rana Sikandar Hayat.
With the new responsibility, Hayat will oversee the Literacy and Non-Formal Basic Education Department alongside his existing portfolio of School Education. The move brings two closely related areas of Punjab’s education sector under his supervision.
The Literacy and Non-Formal Basic Education Department is responsible for providing learning opportunities to out-of-school children as well as illiterate adolescents and adults. According to the Punjab government’s planning documents, its programmes include Non-Formal Basic Education Schools, feeder schools, adolescent literacy centres and adult literacy centres.
The department’s mandate is particularly important in addressing educational exclusion, with its programmes designed to provide primary-level education to out-of-school children and basic literacy and life skills to adolescents and adults who remain outside the formal education system.
Rana Sikandar Hayat has been serving as Punjab’s School Education Minister since the formation of the provincial cabinet in 2024. In March 2024, he also visited the Punjab Education Initiative Management Authority, where officials briefed him on initiatives aimed at improving access to education and the authority’s performance.
The additional portfolio is expected to bring greater coordination between formal schooling, literacy and non-formal education initiatives, particularly efforts aimed at providing educational opportunities to children and adults who are outside the mainstream schooling system.
