KHYBER: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur on Thursday said that girls’ education was the top most priority of the provincial government, which was spending lots of funds for the purpose.

“By investing in girls’ education, we want to make educated girls one of our greatest assets as they possess huge talent and only need proper attention and adequate opportunities to utilise it,” Mr Gandapur told the inaugural ceremony for the government degree college for girls in Bara.

Mr Gandapur told the local schoolgirls that the government would provide them with all possible facilities and opportunities so that they could positively utilise their natural talent.

He announced the upgradation of Category-D hospitals in Dogra, Bara and Jamrud areas as well as the establishment of a nursing college in Khyber district.

“We are also in process of raising the issue of a higher quota for tribal students in medical college admissions with the federal government,” he said.

The CM directed authorities to expedite the construction of Bara-Peshawar Road along with settling the issue of compensation for land utilised for the construction of Nawgazi Baba Road through a local jirga.

He, however, didn’t address the issue of the lack of furniture in the college, which has only chairs and tables for 60 out of the total 263 students.

Also, there was no mention of his previous promises about the establishment of computer and science labs in the college.

The CM reached Bara by a helicopter. The local administration severed the main electricity wires for the helicopter landing near the college premises, suspending power supply to most parts of Bara, including hundreds of industrial units in the nearby Karigar Garrhai Industrial Zone. Leaders of Bara Siyasi Ittehad criticised the CM for taking a helicopter to visit Bara, saying the area is just 12km away from the CM’s House in Peshawar.

They also accused the CM of failing to regularise the services of girls college teachers and complained that the higher secondary school departments had yet to issue the schedule of new expenditure for the college.

The BIS leaders said the department made contractual staff members of the college wait for 10 months to get salary and that, too, for five months only, with the rest withheld for no reason.

Former MNA from Bara Hamidullah Jan Afridi insisted that the college was approved during his tenure as MNA in 2007-8 but its credit was claimed by PTI lawmakers from the area.

Published in Dawn, December 6th, 2024