PESHAWAR, Feb 19: Speakers at a seminar on 'Education for All' have demanded that the government should allocate at least four per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) to the education sector and cut down on defence allocations.

The seminar was organized by the Peshawar Press Club on Thursday. Speaking on the occasion, provincial Education Minister Maulana Fazle Ali Haqqani, eminent educationist Arbab Khan Afridi and Jahanzeb Khan of the Society for the Protection of Rights of Child offered suggestions to promote literacy.

The minister said an interference by the political pressure groups and elected representatives had affected the pace of educational progress in the province.

The education department was short of funds, buildings, furniture and required strength of teachers, but politicking of the vested interests was the biggest problem in resolving these issues, he said.

The minister said the education commission formed after the passage of the Shariat Bill had compiled the suggestions on the character building of students, teachers' training, standard of education, syllabus and women education and held out assurance that the government would implement all these suggestion after getting them endorsed by the NWFP assembly.

The government, he said, would have to induct fresh 25,000 teachers to impart education to the all school-going children by 2015. The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal government was burdened with a backlog of 56 years to get it cleared, he observed.

The education minister said the government was working hard to maintain teacher-students ratio at 1:3 in elementary schools. After coming into power, he said, their government had re-started 701 schools, which were non-functional for a long period. The government was also imparting basic computer training to 4,000 teachers, he added.

He said they had also decided to re-open the teachers training colleges closed by the previous governments in different areas of the province. "The government has selected Peshawar district for the quality (education) and hilly districts, where parents do not send their children to schools, for the quantity purpose," he added.

Arbab Afridi said Pakistan was a signatory to the education for all conference held in 1990 in Thailand, but it had not enhanced its education budget, which was mere one per cent of the GDP. In this region, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka were spending six (India and BD) and nine per cent of their GDP, respectively, he added.

He said Kohistan, Battagram and (Hazara) Shangla districts had 4.4 and 6.6 per cent literacy rate, which was the lowest rate in Pakistan. In 1993, Pakistan People's Party government had finished tuition and admission fees to attract the rural population to send their children to schools, but in 1986 fees were re-imposed, he added.