PESHAWAR, Sept 5: NWFP Governor Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah has said that the provincial government is seriously considering authorizing the newly-created public sector universities to conduct examinations as well as affiliate degree colleges and other relevant institutions falling within their jurisdiction.

Presiding over the Vice Chancellors’ conference held here on Thursday, the governor, who is also the chancellor of the provincial universities, constituted a committee, comprising the representatives of the NWFP University of Engineering and Technology, the NWFP University of Agriculture and the Peshawar University, besides a representative from the provincial education department, to look into the capacity of the respective universities and to suggest ways and means to enable them to shoulder this task. He asked the vice chancellors to prepare themselves to come up to the challenge.

The decision has been taken with a view to lessen the problems and difficulties of the students and also reduce the burden over Peshawar University, the governor said, and asked the committee to visit the universities between Sept 16 and 18 and submit their report to him on Sept 19.

Talking about the mushroom growth of private educational institutions, he stressed the need for expediting efforts for the creation of education regulatory authority, which would help define the rating of educational institutions in accordance with their standard of education. The governor said the Frontier Education Foundation had been entrusted the responsibility to establish an education academy which would focus on in-service training of educational staff.