KP releases Rs9.86b for educational institutions during current fiscal

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has released funds amounting to Rs9.86 billion during the current fiscal year to make facilities available in the public sector educational institutions.
In response to a question, provincial Minister for Education Mohammad Atif Khan told the assembly on Monday that the conditional grant was being spent on provision of electricity and water, construction of boundary walls, additional rooms and lavatories and installation of solar system in the government schools across the province.
He said that apart from Parents-Teachers Councils (PTCs), the elected representatives in the respective village and neighbourhood councils could also monitor and check the construction work in the schools.
The question moved by Qaumi Watan Party Member Provincial Assembly Meraj Humayun drew heated debate during the question-hour session as the assembly was informed that an amount of Rs77,46,772 (7.74 million) was spent on the advertisement campaign of the funds meant for provision of missing facilities in the schools.
Awami National Party parliamentary leader Sardar Hussain Babak said the advertisement campaign had been used for promotion of the ruling party, which is PTI in the province.
Arbab Akbar Hayat of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz said the contracts for the work had been allotted to favourites of the principals of respective schools. He asked the government to use the funds with the approval of the local MPAs.
Earlier, the provincial education minister Atif Khan said the Masjid or Maktab schools had been converted into regular schools under government policy. However, those Maktab schools would not be closed where a regular school is located in the vicinity or having large number of students.
“According to government policy, the Masjid schools having one room and one teacher are being converted into regular schools,” he said, adding that the Maktab schools were established during General Ziaul Haq’s rule. However, Sardar Hussain Babak, who is a former education minister, said the present government had closed down about 1,000 Maktab schools but did not establish a single primary school during its past two and a half years tenure.
He said the closure of Masjid schools would deprive the children of underdeveloped and remote areas of basic education and also lead to increase in unemployment rate.Keeping in the view the interest in the issue, Speaker Asad Qaiser decided to refer the question related to Masjid schools for general discussion in the assembly.