PESHAWAR, June 21: An apparently anti-West MMA government has found new love for English medium public schools naming them after past and present religious-political figures and allocating huge sums in the next budget.
Demands for grants for development expenditures for the next financial year 2007-08 shows that collectively an amount of Rs 393.77 million has been earmarked for the establishment of five model schools at the hometowns of the MMA leadership, including Bannu, Dera Ismail Khan, Swabi, Dir and Nowshera.
The revised estimates of expenditures for the outgoing fiscal year 2006-07 indicate that an amount of Rs 129.50 million has already been spent on such projects.
A hefty allocation for such projects has attracted severe criticism even by a treasury member of the provincial assembly in the ongoing budget session.
MPA Pir Mohammad Khan, while speaking on the budget on Wednesday, accused the MMA government of uneven distribution of development funds, adding such schools have got the highest allocation of the whole education sector uplift projects.
He lamented: “The MMA government opposes a western type of education, but at the same time it promotes it and names these schools after their leaders.”
According to budget estimates an amount of Rs 170 million has been allocated for the second phase of establishment of the Durrani Model Public School at Bannu named after the incumbent Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani. In the outgoing fiscal year 2006-07, an amount of Rs 119 million had already been spent on the project.
Likewise, establishment of the Fazli Ali Model School at Kotha in district Swabi is another mega project of the School and the literacy sector Annual Development Programme (ADP) for which a heavy projection of Rs 98.77 million has been made in next year’s budget. This school has been named after the incumbent education minister Maulana Fazali Ali and an amount of Rs 5 million has been spent on the project in the outgoing fiscal year.
Construction of a building for the Mufti Mahmood Public School, Dera Ismail Khan, is another project for which an amount of Rs 90 million has been kept in next year’s budget.
The government had spent Rs 5 million on the project in the outgoing fiscal year. The school has been named after the former chief minister and father of opposition leader in National Assembly Maulana Fazlur Rehman. Mufti Sahib was a student of the historic Darul Aloom Deoband. An amount of Rs 35 million has been allocated for the establishment of the Qazi Public School in district Nowshera in the next fiscal year.
The executing agency had already spent Rs 2 million on the project in the outgoing fiscal year. This school has been named after MMA president Qazi Hussain Ahmad.
Likewise, an allocation of Rs 20 million is part of the education sector ADP for the establishment of the Siraj Public School at Dir Lower. The school has been named after Jamaat-i-Islami provincial Amir Sirajul Haq, who had resigned from his office as senior minister in the incumbent Durrani-led provincial government last year.
