PESHAWAR
The opposition benches in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Assembly on Friday criticised the education policy of the PTI-led coalition government in the province and observed that standard of education would decline further if it were being pursued.
The assembly session with Speaker Asad Qaisar in the chair discussed the agenda items regarding promotion of education and measures taken and its impact on the people.
JUI-F lawmaker Lutfur Rehman said that there was no education policy at all in the province and added that there were ample opportunities of education in the urban areas of the province whereas in the rural areas there was total dearth of such facilities.
The ghost schools in the province outnumbered functional schools, he said, adding that the government’s slogan for change regarding emergency in education sectors has miserably failed to come on ground.
He said that staff of the 93 schools of the Workers Welfare Board has not been paid for the last eight months. He maintained that abolition of class system was played up by the government in the assembly but no practical step was taken to implement it.
Taking the floor, Qaumi Watan Party (QWT) lawmaker Mairaj Humayun said that literacy rate of the province was still dismal as it was 38 percent for females. He alleged that the government was wasting Rs 600 million on the officers and officials associated with education monitoring system introduced by the KP government.
He complained that schools damaged due to militancy were not being reconstructed, adding that no new school has been established by the PTI government. He said that majority of the schools were lacking basic infrastructure and students take their exams in open sky.
PML-N legislator Aurangzeb Nalota complained that constituencies of the opposition members were being ignored in the education sector, adding, “We have schools in our constituencies where there were no science teachers in the schools and the students covered 20 to 30 km distances to reach their schools.”
He asked whether the education emergency was for the PTI or for the whole province. He said that children of the parliamentarians studied in the private sector schools it indicated that the standard of the of public sector schools was not good.
ANP lawmaker Sardar Hussain Babak, former KP education minister, defended education policy of his government during last five years.
He claimed that the ANP government made 1,600 schools functional out of 1,900 in the province in five years besides introducing cluster system in the education, formulated up-gradation policy, made effective parents-teachers council and provided them proper funding.
The ANP government took the opposition into confidence on every matter while the present government was ignoring them. He also objected over the posting transfer policy of the government and held it unrealistic.
