PESHAWAR, May 24: Federal Education Minister Javed Ashraf Qazi has hinted at extending financial support to the NWFP government for the education sector reforms programme.

The federal minister visited office of the NWFP Education Minister, Maulana Fazle Ali Haqqani, on Thursday. After the meeting a briefing was organised which was attended by education department officials.

The federal minister was informed that 800,000 children had been enrolled in schools of the province. An increase in enrolment had been noticed because of the education sector reforms launched by the provincial government which involved provision of free textbooks, free education up to the Matric level, payment of Rs200 stipend to female students from Class VI to X, merit-based appointment of 45,000 teachers and training of more than 100,000 teachers in various cadres.

The federal minister was informed that at least 70 per cent of the provincial budget had been earmarked for female education and 78 colleges established by the MMA government in recent years as compared to the 104 established in the entire province during the period before that.

Mr Haqqani informed the federal minister of the ‘meagre’ financial resources available with the province and sought assistance of the federal government in this regard.

The federal minister assured the provincial minister of federal government’s full support to provincial government’s programmes to boost literacy rate and promote education in the province.

NWFP Minister for Information and Public Relations Asif Iqbal Daudzai told a journalist during the briefing that the MMA government, instead of spending money lavishly on publicity, had decided to invest the money thus saved on providing free textbooks to students.