MANSEHRA: The district administration has launched a pilot project to check schoolchildren for major physical health conditions.

“We have taken this initiative under the Sustainable Development Goals programme. If it succeeds in detecting visual impairment, malnutrition, and weight loss among students, we will extend it to all primary schools in the district,” additional deputy commissioner Nazima Shaheen told reporters here on Thursday.

Accompanied by convener of the SDGs initiative Farah Naz, she said initially, the students of around 30 boys and girls primary schools would be examined.

Ms Nazima said parents largely didn’t have knowledge of physical impairments in children, so the programme, the first of its kind in Mansehra, would address that issue for better health of minor students.

Official says pilot project will be extended across district

She said schoolchildren would be examined with the help of non-governmental organisations.

“We will also ask teachers to refer the students with low interest in learning to the NGOs for treatment,” she said.

The programme’s convener said the NGOs would collect details of such students and provide them with necessary support.

JUI-F JOINED: Political leader and former opposition leader in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Shahzada Gustasab Khan, who recently quit the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf over high inflation, on Thursday announced the joining of the opposition Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl calling it a vibrant religious party.

He told reporters here that the PTI had come to the power promising them a positive change in their life, but it gifted them with high inflation and unemployment.

Mr Gustasab said he would ensure that his supporters and sympathisers also join the JUI-F.

“The people want to see religious parties rule the country and enforce the true justice system in the country,” he said.

He said the JUI-F was striving for the enforcement of Islamic laws in the country.

The political leader insisted that the other political parties came to power many times but didn’t address inflation, unemployment and other basic issues of the people.

Published in Dawn, October 15th, 2021