PESHAWAR: 'Steps taken to promote literacy in tribal areas'
By Our Correspondent
PESHAWAR, Jan 10: NWFP Governor Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah has said that a Fata education foundation has been established with an endowment fund of Rs105 million to improve education facilities and to increase literacy rate in tribal areas.
Talking to a two-member mission from the Norwegian Embassy at the Governor's House here on Monday, Mr Shah said the foundation would require more funds in future to play an effective role in raising literacy rate which, he added, was vital for the overall development of the area, says a handout issued here on Monday.
He stressed that more efforts were required to improve educational facilities in Fata as women literacy rate in tribal areas was as low as 0.5 per cent. The delegation comprised Alf Arne Ramslien and Harek Aspene.
The deficiency and requirements of Fata were so enormous that a lot of effort was still required to bring it in the mainstream of development process, he added. The people of tribal areas had been deprived of educational facilities for long but recently they themselves had come forward and demanded setting up of educational institutions for both girls and boys. "This is an encouraging sign," the governor said.
Foreign donors have extended financial assistance which has supplemented the efforts of the government. About 350 community schools have been established with the assistance of Norway. The US and other donor countries have also granted $2.5 million for improvement of infrastructure facilities at school-level in Fata.
Mr Shah said the government was planning to strengthen infrastructure facilities of such schools and was also trying to upgrade them. A project to construct additional rooms and to overcome the problem of staff shortage was also under consideration. The government would be faced with a great challenge in the shape of recurring expenditures due to infrastructure development in the future, he added.
The ongoing reform process would help in development of Fata, he said and added that agency councils were being empowered to deal with the development affairs. Different committees comprising agency council members would be established to incorporate their views in development activities and monitor the implementation process as well.
