Women varsity organises conference on tribal districts’ mainstreaming

PESHAWAR: Under the leadership of Vice-Chancellor Professor Dr Razia Sultana, the Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Women University (SBBWU) has been organizing annual conferences on issues relevant to Pakistan and the region.

The two-day national conference on “Mainstreaming Tribal Areas in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa – Prospects and Challenges” concluded on Friday. The event was organised by the SBBWU with the cooperation of the Higher Education Commission.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Information Minister Shaukat Yousafzai inaugurated the conference while Deputy Speaker Mahmood Jan was the chief guest at the concluding session. Both the PTI leaders lauded the SBBWU initiative for holding the conference and said they would look into the recommendations and demands of the conference.

Mehmood Jan said the PTI government was working to expedite Fata reforms to help develop the under-developed tribal districts. He said the government would not accept any outside interference on this issue as Fata’s merger was an internal matter of Pakistan. He noted that the ruling PTI would lose political capital if it failed to deliver after winning the July 2018 general election on the basis of its reforms agenda.

Brought in a wheel-chair as she had fractured her ankle during a recent visit to Quetta, Vice Chancellor Dr Razia Sultana used her speeches at the inaugural and concluding sessions to highlight the achievements of the university and the need for government support to further its objectives. In particular, she sought help for the construction of another hostel to facilitate the girls’ students who belong to all parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and the erstwhile Fata. She pointed out that nearly 1,000 students of the more than 4,000 studying at the university belong to various parts of the former Fata, now called tribal districts.

She said six girls’ colleges located in Khyber, Orakzai, Kurram and Mohmand tribal districts were affiliated with the SBBWU and this explained the role the university was playing in imparting higher education to the female population of the most under-developed region of Pakistan. She advocated including women in the policy-making process and stressed the need for improving Pakistan’s image in the world.

Dr Razia Sultana, who received an extension when her term as the vice-chancellor ended some months ago, is credited with putting the university on the path of development through construction of new buildings at its main campus on the outskirts of Peshawar and opening new departments. She will continue to head the university until a new vice-chancellor is named. She is among the leading candidates who have applied for the vice-chancellor’s position.

As described in the conference documents, KP and Fata were ‘congenital twins’ as their law and order and economy was intertwined. However, it was pointed out that unlike Fata the KP province had a defined and functional constitutional, political, legal and administrative structure. Extending KP’s system to Fata was mentioned as one of the several challenges for completing the process of merger.

The conference aimed at examining the prospects and challenges facing mainstreaming of the erstwhile Fata with KP.

A number of presentations were made by scholars from KP and universities located in other provinces. In the first session on Thursday, Vice-Chancellor Dr Razia Sultana, Dr Mohammad Suhail, Sadia Rafique, Mohammad Rafique and Prof Fakhr-e-Alam spoke and known academician Dr Mansoor Akbar Kundi was in the chair.

Retired Brigadier Saeedullah chaired the second session. Among the speakers were Dr Raza Rahman Qazi, Dr Mohammad Riaz Shad, Sidra Jamil Bajwa and Dr Mohammad Ali Dinakhel.

The third session was chaired by defence analyst retired Brigadier Mahmood Shah. The speakers were Dr Ejaz Gul, Dr Idrees Masood, Naila Aman Qazi and Dr Sadaf Bashir.

The fourth session had Prof Dr Zahid Anwar as the chairman. The speakers included Dr Riffat Sardar, local scholar Khan Zeb and Bakara Najmdeen from Nigeria who prepared a joint paper, former police officer Syed Akhtar Ali Shah and Prof Dr Babar Shah.

The panel discussion on the last day of the conference was moderated by Prof Dr Jehanzeb Khalil. The panelists were Prof Dr Sarfaraz Khan, Dr Ashraf Ali, retired Brigadier Saeedullah and senior journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai.