LANDI KOTAL: The tribal students have demanded an enhanced reserved quota for them in cadet, military and PAF colleges in the country.

Sources said that written tests for those institutions started from October 7 and would continue till the end of the year as such tests were conducted every Sunday.

They said that hundreds of tribal students appeared in the tests for admissions in cadet colleges, military colleges and Pakistan Air Force institutions across the country.

Sources said that only three seats were reserved for students of seven tribal districts in military colleges in Jehlum, Sui and Murree. They added that tribal students had to compete on open merit with students of major cities like Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad for getting admissions in PAF colleges in Sargodha and Lower Topa, Murree as those institutions did not offer special quota for tribal students.

Only three seats reserved for seven tribal districts in colleges of Jhelum, Sui and Murree

Similarly the Navy College in Gwadar also have no special seats for tribal youth as the institution has reserved 60 per cent of its seats for Balochistan.

The two cadet colleges in Wana and Spinkai in South Waziristan offer only 60 out of the total 200 seats to the students of six tribal districts. The rest of 140 seats are reserved for students of Waziristan. In the cadet college of Hasanabdal, no special quota has been reserved for students of tribal students.

Sources said that the authority of allocation of seats or special quota in military colleges lied with the army chief while chief of the air staff and governor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were authorised to enhance or reduce the number of seats for a particular region in PAF and cadet colleges respectively.

Hazrat Gul, a teacher from Kurram tribal district, said that most of the tribal students failed to get admissions in those institutions owing to their poor educational background and less number of seats for them.

He said that tribal students were not able to compete on open merit with students from big cities and thus they could not fulfil their dream of joining cadet and military colleges.

Malak Razaq, a tribal elder, said that military authorities had on a number of occasions promised to enrol tribal students in the leading military, PAF and cadet colleges of the country.

He appealed to the army chief to look into the matter in quota for tribal students in those colleges would save them from falling into the hands of extremists.

Bahadar Khan, an educationist, said that government should increase the number of seats for tribal students, keeping in view the growing population of the region and also the lack of quality educational institutions in any of the tribal districts.

Published in Dawn, October 15th, 2018