ISLAMABAD, Dec 15: Federal Education Minister Lt-Gen (retired) Javed Ashraf Qazi on Tuesday lashed out at Islami Jamiat Tulaba (IJT), the student wing of Jamaat-i-Islami, for what he called misleading people on setting up of Aga Khan Examination Board (AKEB).

In an official statement the minister was quoted as saying "I would never let certain religion-political elements hijack the country's education policy for augmenting their own nefarious political agenda at the cost of country's progress."

The education minister condemned the holding of a referendum on AKEB establishment, terming it an ill-directed and ill- produced drama to misguide students as well as parents.

The double-faced politico-religious parties would never be allowed to misguide the population by exploiting the religious sentiments through self-conducted shame referendums, he added.

He said majority of the country's enlightened and educated population took the results of the referendum organized by the IJT as a laughing stuff. He said dragging students on streets to achieve wishful political ambitions was a flawed agenda of the politico-religious parties.

Lt-Gen (retired) Qazi said he kept on clarifying in the National Assembly and the Senate that the Aga Khan Examination Board would not be allowed to conduct examinations at the public sector schools, adding that the exam-taking body was bound under an ordinance to take examinations only out of the contents approved by the education ministry.

The minister maintained that certain elements stirring baseless propaganda against the AKEB were least interested in the country's economic and educational development.

He said the education board would only affiliate willing schools and colleges in the private-sector and conduct O and A level examinations on the same pattern as that of the British Council.