PESHAWAR, April 4: Provincial legislators MPAs, union council Nazims, councillors and activists of different NGOs have urged the vice-chancellor of the University of Peshawar to withdraw
what they called the unwise decision of increasing admission and tuition fees of the varsity affiliated schools.
Speaking at a joint news conference at the Peshawar Press Club on Sunday, Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal MPAs Kashif Azam and Maulana Amanullah Haqani, University Town union council Nazim Saeedullah, Palosi union council Nazim Fida Khan and social activists Samiullah Khalil and Shafiullah condemned the unprecedented raise in the students' fees.
They said the recent increase in the fees was aimed at closing the doors of education on poor people who could not pay heavy fees. The grand campus where three universities, hostels, affiliated colleges and schools were housed, they said, had been donated by the elders of Khalil tribe.
Instead of allocating a quota in the clerical cadre to the Khalil tribe and reserving seats for their children in various departments of the varsity the vice-chancellor was creating problem for them, they added.
Earlier, they said, the varsity administration had destroyed the criteria of merit by introducing the so-called self-financing scheme. This scheme had been introduced to accommodate the college dropouts and pampered scions of the influential families, closing the doors of opportunity on poor students, they added.
They advised the vice-chancellor not to undermine the elected representatives of the people who were demanding restoration of the old fees system. Dubbing the people's representatives as 'miscreants' was nothing more than an outcome of a sick mind, they said.
They said they had conveyed the apprehensions of the affected parents to Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani, who had also discussed the issue with the NWFP governor.
"The students would pay fees from Rs3,500 to Rs4,500 annually, but the university administration has made a raise of Rs18,000 to Rs25,000 per year in the Islamia Collegiate School, University Public School and University Model School," they said.
