KOHAT, Dec 29: NWFP Governor Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah has emphasised that the decline in the standard of education can be checked through imparting quality training to teachers.

He said in the past no attention had been paid to the training of teachers according to the needs of the students. However, the present government realised that proper training of teachers could bring improvement in the standard of education.

He was speaking as the chief guest at the inauguration ceremony of a teachers’ academy here on Saturday.

Mr Shah observed that many social problems had cropped up due to lacunas in the education system which itself suffered from all types of ills, including corruption.

These problems, he went on to say, could be overcome only when teachers understood their responsibilities and discharged their duties with seriousness of purpose and honesty.

He regretted that despite the presence of millions of teachers the environment in the educational institutions and the system had been on the verge of disaster.

Feeling the gravity of the situation, the governor further said, the federal government had okayed a university-level training institution for teachers at Lahore.

However, the success of such institutions depended on strong coordination between the education department and the concerned authorities, he observed.

In response to a point raised by the managing director of the Frontier Education Foundation, Mr Khalid Sultan Khwaja, the governor announced that after shifting of the Kohat Board of Secondary Education to its new building, the existing building should be handed over to the teachers’ academy.

He said the newly-constructed building had hostel facility for teachers and at present 30 teachers were being provided training in the academy.