Lahore – The Punjab government has made a huge policy change and announced a unprecedented 400 percent increase in education development budget, increasing it to 110 billion from 32 billion rupees. The advance education budget experienced a sharper increase as it went up by 500 per cent, says Education Minister Rana Sikandar Hayat.
This enormous increment, announced on June 12, 2025, is under the premiership of Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz, who also focused on the regional inclusion by introducing scholarships and laptop schemes to 5,000 students across the provinces.
Authorities elaborated how the government has initiated 5,006 development projects compared to the former government which initiated 1,004. The budget will improve infrastructure, cut expenditures and combat such systemic problems as corruption and false enrollments.
The main reforms made are validation of 2.6 million students though NADRA, elimination of 1.1 million ghost students, and provision of 12000 new classrooms to enroll more than 450000 children in early childhood education.
Even the cost of constructing classrooms has been reduced significantly- 5 million rupees to 1.25 million rupees- in order to save government money and at the same time increase the outreach.
The budgetary boost marks the bold endeavor of Punjab to restore the faith in publicly funded education and to provide equal opportunity to all students to access quality education provincially.