Minister of Education Dr Ahmed Asim has said that increasing the number of schools that have only one session has not resulted in any positive outcome.

Speaking at the Parliament Committee on Oversight of the Government today, Dr Asim said that great efforts were made in 2010 and 2011 under the former government’s policy of changing the school system to one session; including converting store rooms, staffrooms and AV rooms to classrooms in order to facilitate the single-session system. He said that these abrupt changes to the education system, however, did not result in any positive outcome.

“When we checked, we found out that the system was changed to single session in schools by converting some spaces to classrooms. Even storage rooms were changed to classrooms. Staffrooms were changed to classrooms. AV rooms were changed to classrooms. By doing this, the number of schools that adopted the single-session system was greatly increased. But we don’t see any benefit of doing this,” he said.

Dr Asim said that the schools had to face difficulties due to having to change to the single-session system. “The schools had to face major difficulties due to this. Problems due to the lack of a staffroom, AV room, library. They had to face all these problems.”

The Education Minister said that out of the PSIP budget allocated to the ministry, 70 percent will be spent on increasing space in classrooms. MVR165 million has been allocated as PSIP in the budget for Education Ministry, while for 2010-2011 the amount was about MVR65 million.

Dr Asim said that the ministry will not attempt to cease the single-session system for schools, and that PSIP funds allocated to the ministry will be spent on improving the system and strengthening the education system.

During the address by the Education Minister on the occasion of the start of the new academic year, he said that 70 percents of schools in the country have adopted the single-session system, and that more schools will follow in the course of this year.

Implementation of the single-session system for schools commenced during the government of former President Mohamed Nasheed, when Dr Mustafa Luthfee acted as Minister of Education.