PESHAWAR: Participants of a consultative conference have demanded of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to increase budgetary allocation to education sector, particularly for promotion of girls’ education, in the violence-hit province.

The conference titled ‘fund the future: invest in girls’ education’, was organised by Pakistan Coalition for Education (PCE), an NGO, in collaboration with Khwendo Kor and IDEA organisations at a local hotel here on Thursday.

Provincial Minister for Mines and Mineral Development Anisa Zeb Tahirkheli was the chief guest on the occasion. Stakeholders belonging to different civil society organisations and government departments attended the function.

The participants said that due to slow pace of funds utilisation the situation was quite dismal in education sector in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. They stressed that the provincial government should set its priorities in order to ensure maximum spending on girls education. They suggested decrease in non-development budget so that a substantial increase in the budget of primary and secondary education sector could be announced.

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PCE national coordinator Zahra Arshad highlighted the significance of promotion of girls education, saying it was vital for sustainable economic development in the country. She said that successive governments had failed to allocate sufficient funds for promotion of the education sector. She called for making a substantial increase in education budget of the country, at least four per cent of the total budgetary allocations in the upcoming fiscal year.

Other participants also stressed the need for maximum budgetary allocation for teachers training programmes. They called for taking steps for prevention of political intervention in the education sector.

Some of the participants viewed that social taboos and traditions were main hurdles to the promotion of girls education in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. They emphasised the need for creating awareness to increase female literacy ratio in the province.

Anisa Zeb Tahirkheli said that the provincial government was committed to promoting quality education and that a considerable increase in funds allocation for education was made during the current financial year.

She said that the province was confronted with a host of challenges like security threats and natural disasters, adding that despite that the government was making efforts to ensure promotion of quality education at every level.

The minister demanded holding of national population census, saying it would make it easier to ascertain the exact number of out-of-school children across the country.

She said that the provincial government was making legislation to ensure free and compulsory education. For this purpose, she said that consultation sessions would be conducted before enactment of Article 25-A by the provincial assembly.

She said that efforts were being made to increase literacy ratio by opening new schools.

Published in Dawn, April 29th, 2016