PESHAWAR, July 7: Office-bearers of the Tribal Students Organisation set a one-month deadline for establishing a medical college and a degree college and upgrading the degree college in the Kurram Agency.

They threatened to stage protest demonstrations in Peshawar and Islamabad.

They were addressing a press conference at the press club here on Thursday.

President of the organisation’s Kurram unit Mir Afzal Khan Tori and senior vice-president Syed Humayun Shah said that two years ago former NWFP governor Syed Iftikhar Hussain had announced that a medical college would be established in the tribal agency, adding that land had been selected in the Parachinar area while a temporary building was selected for starting classes.

They said that work on the project had not begun even after two years after the announcement. They said that the former governor had also announced to make arrangements for starting post-graduate classes in degree college but so far nothing had been done.

The students said that the literacy ratio in the Kurram Agency was higher than other tribal areas, but the government was not focussing on development of education there.

They said that hundreds of boys and girls were being deprived of higher education due to absence of post-graduate classes.

Similarly, thousands of students could not get admission in the only degree college in the area because of the seat limitations, they added.