KOHAT: Students at hundreds of private schools are studying in congested environment without required facilities in the district due to the negligence of officials of the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Kohat, which is the checking authority, sources said.

“The BISE grants registration to new schools after its team checks the available facilities and issues ‘satisfactory’ report,” said Private Educational Association Kohat president Rab Nawaz on Thursday.

Answering a question, he said that they had so far given membership of the association to 73 schools, though some of them lacked the needed facilities.

However, he said that it was the responsibility of BISE to check the availability of teachers, their qualifications, fee structure, laboratory, playground, swings, etc in the schools.

He said that the board could refuse registration or order closure of a school if it lacked the needed facilities.

He claimed that managements of several profit-making private schools bribed officials for getting good results in examinations, while those who provided good education to the students by investing millions of rupees after completing the criteria laid down by BISE, were not awarded good marks.

Mr Nawaz said that membership of the association was open for all private schools because it was formed to solve their problems.

Answering a question, the association president said that in some private schools teachers were paid as low as Rs1,500 a month.

He said that the government should also support private schools so they could provide improved facilities.

IMRAN TO VISIT KUST: Special assistant to chief minister on information and higher education, Mushtaq Ahmed Ghani, has called upon the high-ups of Kohat University of Science and Technology to focus on research-based education and prepare human resource in line with the need of the market.

He said that Imran Khan would visit KUST in the near future.

He said this while attending a presentation at the varsity the other day. KUST vice-chancellor Prof Fida Khattak urged Mr Ghani to help resolve the electricity feeder issue to ensure smooth supply of electricity to the university.

Meanwhile, speaking at the concluding ceremony of the three-day U-23 regional games the other day, Mr Ghani said that the provincial government had introduced sports competitions at district level to provide opportunity to the youth to show their talent and qualify for national games.

He claimed that the provincial government was spending Rs60.5 million on the under-23 games in the province.

Published in Dawn, March 11th, 2016