MANSEHRA: MNA Sarzamin Khan warned the provincial government on Sunday that if appointments of lecturers at the sole degree college of Kohistan were not made within a week he would lead a sit-in protest outside the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly building in Peshawar.

“Over 2,000 students from across Kohistan district are enrolled in the Puttan degree college, but classes could not be held for the last 2 years as the teaching staff has not been appointed as yet,” Mr Khan, who is parliamentary secretary for textile industry, told mediapersons here.

He said that a delegation of Kohistan people had met special assistant to the chief minister on higher education Mushtaq Ghani and the high-ups of higher education department many times, but the college was closed for the last two years depriving the local students of education opportunities.

“I have also written to the chief minister to ask the education department to appoint the faculty staff and start classes in the college, but to no avail,” he said.

MNA threatens protest outside KP Assembly if staff not provided

The MNA said that Puttan degree college was made functional a few years ago, but staff was yet to be provided.

“Majority of the local people is poor and they can’t afford to send their children for education to other parts of the province,” he said and threatened to lead a sit-in protest outside the provincial assembly in Peshawar if staff was not provided to the only degree college of Kohistan.

“The real face of the party ruling the province could be seen in Kohistan where children are without higher education,” said Mr Khan while referring to tall claims of PTI about promotion of education.

The PML-N MNA claimed that the federal government would soon start development schemes in the district.

Zubair Shah, principal of the college, told mediapersons that he had repeatedly written to the provincial higher education department for posting faculty staff, but the appointments were still awaited.

JI PLAN: Jamaat-i-Islami district chief Tariq Sherazi said on Sunday that over 100,000 youngsters would be inducted into JI through its youth programme in Mansehra.

He said that the one-month youth enrolment programme would be launched from Feb 19. “We would achieve our target and even more youngsters would join JI in the district,” hoped Mr Sherazi. He said that the youth could play an important role in reaching people for bringing about a true social change.

Published in Dawn, February 15th, 2016