Classes at only girls higher secondary school sought

MANSEHRA: The people of Danda-Kholian in Oghi on Monday demanded of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to begin classes at the only girls’ higher secondary school in the area.

“Local schoolgirls move to other cities or even quit education on completion of matriculation, but the government despite having a newly built building couldn’t initiate the intermediate classes for the last four years,” Hafiz Mohammad Yunus, the former naib tehsil nazim of Oghi told reporters in Oghi.

Led by him, a group of locals said that some six years ago the then provincial minister of Forest and Environment, Abrar Hussain Tanoli, had approved the upgrading of the local girls’ secondary school to a higher secondary level.

“The construction of the building of the higher secondary section was completed some four years ago but classes couldn’t be initiated as yet,” he said. Yunus said that people had also taken up that issue with local lawmakers and the Education Department but to no avail. “If the Education Department doesn’t launch the current educational session at the newly built building, we would be left with no other option but to come onto the streets to protest against this injustice being meted out to local schoolgirls,” Yunus added.

Meanwhile, a group of locals in Oghi demanded of the government to build another boys’ degree college and upgrade many boys and girls high schools to higher secondary standards to provide local students quality education.

Led by Irfan Khan Swati advocate, they told reporters that boys’ Degree College made functional decades back couldn’t cater to the educational needs.“Owing to lack of seats, our students move to Mansehra and other districts in Hazara division and another degree college is the need of the hour,” he said.Swati said the government should upgrade all those government high schools in Dilbori, Khabl and Kokla to higher secondary schools.