Students in Bara stage protest camp

BARA: Several students on Thursday set up a protest camp after they failed to get admission in government college in the Bara tehsil of the Khyber tribal district.

They said as many as 1,600 students from the Khyber tribal district were deprived of admissions in government colleges after they passed matriculation examination this year.

About 1,932 students had passed the matriculation examination in Bara subdivision this year and only 260 of them were given admissions in the Government College, Kohi Sher Haider village.

“The remaining 1,600 students are deprived of admissions,” said one of the students. The students, who could not get admissions, have set up a protest camp outside the Bara Press Club where they were also being supported by local people and tribal elders.

They said they have set up the protest camp as last resort because no one was listening to them.

The protesting students demanded the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to immediately upgrade the government high schools of Shalobar, Melwat, Alamgoodar and Jaffar Killay to higher secondary level to accommodate the students.

They also demanded initiation of second-shift classes in the Koh-e-Sher Haider College to accommodate more students.

The protesters warned of expanding the protest if their demands were not met.

They said that majority of the matric passed students belong to humble backgrounds and they cannot afford to take admissions in private colleges.

Khyber Union and Khyber Students Union office-holders including Zahidullah, Haris Khan, Gul Nazir, Baseer Afridi and Arif Afridi also attended the protest camp.