KOHAT: The Pakistan Air Force School and College, Kohat, has introduced the ‘wall of kindness’ to help the poor students pay the tuition fee.

The college administration has hanged a big box inside the institution in which the students from rich families deposit any amount to help their poor colleagues.

Maj (retd) Tahir Jalil, the college principal, told Dawn he developed the idea after his vice-principal came to his office accompanied by a man with a request to exempt the poor man’s son three months outstanding fee. The administration had expelled his son for not paying the fee despite several notices. He said he regularly received dozens of requests for fee concessions and exemptions from poor students.

Mr Jalil said the man told him he was a rickshaw driver and could not afford the fee of his son. “I explained to him that institutions like PAF are for the children of armed forces and provide them quality education at concessional rates and the civilians have to bear the full expenses,” said the principal.

Mr Jalil said he asked the rickshaw driver to admit his son to a government school, to which, he said it was his cherished dream to make his son an officer in the armed forces. “Then I advised him that his son will suffer from inferiority complex because a student enrolled in the PAF college have to bear monthly expenditures of about Rs6,000 in addition to daily pocket money,” the principal said, adding afterwards he launched the system for poor students and received very encouraging and positive response. “Students from well-to-do families drop money in the box in envelops with the name of the recipient and his class. In such a way they pay the fee of poor students without hurting their self-respect,” he said.

DEMARCATION OF LAND SOUGHT: The nazims and elders of towns along the Orakzai tribal agency have demanded permanent demarcation of the boundaries to avoid clashes with the tribesmen which have claimed precious lives in the past.

Nazim of Ustarzai, Syed Mehtab-ul-Hassan, and town nazim Zaheer Abbass said the dispute over the occupation of their land by Mishti and Sheikhan tribes of Orakzai Agency had been running since 1970. They were speaking during a meeting with additional assistant commissioner, Samiullah, on Monday.

“If somebody from Ustarzai and Kachai areas of Kohat enters those disputed parts the tribesmen arrest them and confiscate their cattle and, on a number of occasions, they have killed the shepherds,” Mr Hassan said. He said they had been demanding demarcation on the basis of 1970 revenue record when Oarkzai was carved out of Kohat.

He said same was the case between Bezote area of Orakzai and Muhammadzai of Kohat. Now FC has been deployed at one place near Kohat city but the disputed area was still unmanned since 1970. He said there were losses on the feeders supplying electricity to Orakzai Agency from Ustarzai, but the consumers of settled areas were subjected to prolonged loadshedding.

Published in Dawn, December 19th, 2017