KOHAT: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has put at stake the future of hundreds of girl students of a college being run under the aegis of Frontier Education Foundation (FEF) by serving a notice on its administration to vacate the building.

The model FEF girls college was established in 2002 on the orders of then governor retired Lt-Gen Iftikhar Hussain Shah and district nazim Malik Asad by giving it the building of the women’s hospital, located in the city centre. The building was also renovated with the government funds at that time. Since then the provincial government had served three notices on the college. It is not clear for what purpose the government wants to vacate the building.

This time the notice has been issued by the assistant commissioner, Kohat, in which the government has also demanded payment of Rs2.9 million as outstanding rent since 2002.

Sources told Dawn that the PTI-led government, which had declared education emergency in the province, just wanted to get income from the building for which the administration was being forced to vacate it.

Over 5,000 girl students have passed out from the FEF college since 2002 and at present 600 girls are getting education there. The sources said that about 47 students of the college had become doctors and engineers so far.

The parents and staff have expressed the fear that if the college was shifted from the city centre to the KDA Town or any other far-off place the students would give up education.

The parents told Dawn that they would not send their daughters to any far-flung place for education. They said that they had admitted their daughters because the college was located near their homes at a safe place.

They have appealed to the CM’s adviser Amjid Khan Afridi, MNA Shehryar Afridi and MPA Ziaullah Bangash to use their good offices and ask the government not to shift the college from its present place.

Published in Dawn, December 10th, 2014