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| November 16, 2005 | Wednesday | Shawwal 13, 1426 |
Fata elders, students reject new policy: Admissions to medical colleges
PESHAWAR, Nov 15: Tribal elders and students have rejected the new policy regarding admissions of students from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas to medical colleges of the province and have asked the government to restore the old admission policy.
“New admission policy has deprived many deserving students from Orakzai and North Waziristan agencies of admission to medical colleges”, said tribal elder Mohammad Zaman Dawar at a news conference here on Tuesday.
Flanked by other tribal elders and students, Mr Dawar said that under the new police 32 seats had been reserved for Fata students in the Khyber Medical College, 28 in the Ayub Medical College, 10 each in the Gomal Medical College and the Saidu Medical College and 3 each in the Khyber College of Dentistry and the Ayub College of Dentistry. He said besides these 85 seats in the NWFP, 26 seats had been reserved in other colleges of the country for Fata.
Earlier, he said, 13 students from each of the seven tribal agencies were given admission to medical colleges and this policy ensured equal opportunities to the students of each tribal agency.
He said that this year the governor’s Fata Secretariat propounded a new admission policy which badly hit the students belonging to North Waziristan and Orakzai Agencies. According to the new policy 14 students from Kurram Agency, 18 from Bajuar, 16 from Khyber, 22 from Mohmand, 8 from North Waziristan and 5 from Orakzai Agency could get admission to medical colleges.
He said the new admission policy had not been mentioned in the prospectus and Fata students came to know it when they were asked to appeared for interview on November 14 at the Khyber Medical College.
According to the new policy, 30 per cent of the seats allotted for Fata would be filled on merit while rest of the seats would be allocated to tribal units on population basis, he added.
Mr Dawar said that under a well-planned conspiracy population of the North Waziristan and the Orakzai agencies had been shown to be less while that of the other tribal units had been shown to be more than their actual populations.
He said population of Fata, according to the 1998 census, was 3.138 million and there was no way to assess its present population as no census carried out after 1998.
He said the government had allocated equal seats to all the tribal units to offer them equal opportunities of progress and prosperity but the governor’s Fata Secretariat, in collaboration with the administration of medical colleges and Ministry of State and Frontier Regions (Safron) brought about changes in the policy in their own interests.
A similar policy, he said, was announced in 2001 by the governor’s Fata Secretariat for admission of tribal students to medical colleges but the same was declared unjust by the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
Mr Dawar said that non-representation of tribal people in the governor’s Fata Secretariat was the main reason behind the problems of the students. It was all the more surprising that even the public representatives from Fata had not been consulted before changes in the admission policy.
He asked the president and the NWFP governor to restore the old admission policy to save the future of students from Fata.
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