TIMERGARA: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa finance minister Muzaffar Syed on Wednesday announced the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Malakand would neither be relocated nor would it be merged with any educational board.

He was addressing a function named educational curriculum convention at the BISE, Malakand offices in Chakdara.

The minister said the government had not decided to merge educational boards with each other.

“Important decisions like merger of educational boards should be made in the (provincial) assembly and not drawing rooms,” he said.

Muzaffar Syed said the Jamaat-i-Islami lawmakers along with the people of Dir would offer strong resistance if the local BISE offices were relocated.

He said the establishment of BISE, Malakand was approved by former Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal government.

“Then senior minister Sirajul Haq had tackled the issue very ably, especially when the people of Swat demanded a separate educational board for themselves,” he said.

The minister urged teachers and private educational institutions to focus their attention on the adherence to curriculum and training of teachers.

He also announced blacktopping of the link road of the board. Principals, teachers and notables of the area attended the function.

Noted among other speakers on the occasion were AFAQ executive director Shahid Warisi, BISE, Malakand secretary Tariq Mehmood and Majid Ali.

Also in the day, Qaumi Watan Party leader Bakht Baidar announced he along with locals won’t let the government merge the BISE Malakand with Intermediate and Secondary Education Board, Swat.

He told reporters here that the PTI government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had been experimenting with different sectors but such exercise had miserably failed.

The QWP leader said millions of rupees had been spent on the building of the BISE Malakand, so it would be very unfair on part of the administration if the board was merged with another in the region.

EXAMS POSTPONED: The Allama Iqbal Open University on Wednesday announced it had postponed all its ongoing examinations throughout the country for security reasons.

Published in Dawn, December 25th, 2014