PESHAWAR: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chairman Imran Khan said on Wednesday that his party’s scheduled protest on May 11 was solely aimed at seeking justice against rigging in last year’s general elections and would not derail democracy.

“We will take to the roads to lodge a protest over not getting justice,” he said in a chat with the mediapersons at the inauguration ceremony of Tameer-i-School Programme. The PTI has been demanding of the Election Commission of Pakistan and judiciary to probe into the rigging in the previous general elections, but in vain.

The Tameer-i-School Programme (TSP) is a new initiative of the Elementary and Secondary Education Department aimed at providing basic facilities in government school through the financial support of expatriate Pakistanis and well-off people in the country. The donated fund would be spent through the Parent Teachers Councils.

“The PTI is left with no other option but to protest on roads after our repeated demands for probing the rigging in four constituencies of Punjab were ignored,” Mr Khan said.

He said that he had demanded of ECP and judiciary to verify the thumb impression on the ballot papers soon after the general elections, but despite the lapse of 11 months the demand was yet to be met.

Addressing the inaugural ceremony of TSP, the PTI chief said that Pakistan was one of the five world countries spending minimum funds on the education sector. He said that Pakistan was on top among the world countries with out of school children.

Mr Khan said that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government would allocate maximum funds for the education sector in the coming budget. He said that no country could be developed without giving importance to the education and its recent examples were Singapore and Malaysia who had prioritised education.

He said that of the thousands of government schools lacking facilities, 122 schools had been selected as pilot project under the Tameer-i-School Programme. About 14,000 schools need additional classrooms, 8,000 are without boundary walls and 8,000 have no drinking water etc, he said, adding that teachers’ absenteeism in government schools in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa stood at 30 per cent, which was causing Rs17 billion loss to the national exchequer.

“I will say that change has come when parents would prefer to admit their children to the government schools instead of private schools,” Chief Minister Pervez Khattak said while addressing the ceremony.

He asked the Parent Teacher Councils to utilise the donated fund in the schools honestly. The chief minister hoped that basic facilities would be provided in all government schools through the TSP in coming few years.