PESHAWAR, Feb 7: Establishment of computer laboratories in over 25 schools of the remote and under-developed areas— Charsadda, Dir, Malakand, Swat, Karak, Kohat and Hangu— will be completed soon.

NWFP Education Minister Imtiaz Hussain Gillani said this on Thursday while inaugurating computer laboratories in some public schools here.

He said, initiative of the  NWFP government to provide facilities of computer education in government schools, under the public-private partnership, had received another boost as a third private firm the Frontier Information Technology Network (FIN) set up the labs in as many as nine schools of the city.

The minister opened computer labs in Government High Schools Gulbahar, Nanakpura and Girls High Schools Ladygrifth and Cantt No.1. He was accompanied by Director Schools Hafiz Bahader Khan, Peshawar EDO (Education) and Naveed Khan of the FIN.

Another company the Frontier Rural Education Development Organization (FREDO), a sister organization of the FIN , was working for the establishment of 125 more labs in the schools of these previously ignored areas.

Thus, 150 government schools were to be computerized by them well before the start of next academic year -  within the next one month, he said.

Two other firms, the IRDO and Masar Com, have already set up seven labs, and are teaching computer science in over 100 such schools.

School children informed Mr Gillani that majority of them had not seen a computer at all.