MINGORA: Hundreds of girls in Swat have been deprived of getting higher education as they failed to get admission in various disciplines of BS in colleges here for want of seats.

According to the admission record obtained from lone Government Postgraduate Girls College, Saidu Sharif, about 2,000 girls applied for admissions against 320 seats in eight disciplines available in the college.

The parents whose daughters could not get admission in BS programmes this year said that it was misconception that Pakhtuns did not want their daughters to be educated.

Over 6,000 girls have been deprived of higher education in three years

“We want our daughters to get higher education but they are refused admission because we have only one college for girls and it has not enough seats,” said Zohra Rehman, a mother, whose daughter who could not get admission in BS this year.

Boys’ colleges in Swat also offer admission to girls but due to cultural and religious taboos majority of parents do not send their daughters to these colleges.

Similarly, the University of Swat also has a good number of disciplines for BS but here too parents do not want to send their daughters studying alongside boys.

“First, I don’t want to send my daughter to study alongside boys, and secondly the semester fee in the Swat University is not affordable for me. Only rich people can afford the fee charged by the varsity,” said Ahmad Hilal, whose daughter could not get admission in the Saidu Sharfi’s postgraduate college this year due to non-availability of seats.

Prof Nargis Ara, principal of the postgraduate college, said every year hundreds of girls seeking admission in BS were deprived of admissions as the college did have the number of seats to accommodate every admission seeker.

She said the government had eliminated the two-year BA/BSc structure which had created a big problem as there were more than 30 disciplines in the structure, while the government started only eight disciplines for BS in her college. She said the teaching staff for BA/BSc was now surplus in the college.

“The government should either restore the BA/BSc structure or increase the number of BS disciplines and also seats in the college,” she said.

According to an estimate, during the last three years, over 6,000 girls in Swat were deprived of higher education due to scarcity of colleges for girls and less number of seats in the existing ones.

District development advisory committee chairman Fazal Hakim Khan said he had discussed the issue with the chief minister and secretary higher education for increasing the number of seats in the girls’ colleges. “The secretary higher education is considering the issue and soon extra seats in each discipline will be available in the colleges,” he said.

Published in Dawn, October 6th, 2019