PESHAWAR, Sept 23: The authorities have stopped fresh enrolment under a federal government-funded scholarship programme for talented students from Federally Administered Tribal Areas to get free education in leading schools and colleges of the country, sources said.

The programme titled ‘provision of quality education to talented students of Fata and Balochistan’ was designed in 2006 on the directives of then President Pervez Musharraf to provide quality education to talented students of tribal areas and Balochistan. The programme was formally launched in 2007, sources said.

They said that under the programme so far 174 students had been enrolled in leading schools and 460 students in technical and commerce colleges of the country, where they were getting education free of cost.

They said that the government had so far paid educational institutions the fee of up to Rs106,000 per student per annum from grade 7th to 12th and Rs40,000 to each of those studying in technical and commerce educational institutions.

They said that selection of the talented students from all Fata was made through Educational Testing and Evaluation Authority (ETEA) to maintain transparency.

The sources said that all the students from Fata and Frontier Regions (FRs) enrolled under the scholarship programme had proved that they were equally talented like students of other parts of the country. They said that some of these students had also secured distinction in inter- school and board examinations.

“Several of them remained among the top 10 position holders in the respective board examinations,” the sources claimed. First batch of the students has recently qualified the intermediate examinations and proceeded to universities for higher educations.

One of the students Basharat Hussain, a resident of Kurram Agency, had got admission in Abbottabad Public School under the scholarship programme and secured second position in the EATA test for admission to medical colleges in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The students were enrolled in all cadet colleges and other leading educational institutions of the country, including Aitcheson College Lahore, Army Burn Hall College Abbottabad, Pak Scouts Cadet College Batrasi, Pak Steel Cadet College Karachi, Sadiq Public School Bahawalpur, Cadet College Petaro Sindh, and Pak Turk International Public School and College, Islamabad.

The sources said that when tribal people saw these students studying in elite schools and their outstanding performance, many parents desired to get their children admitted to such educational institutions.

Some parents from tribal areas told this correspondent that they had prepared their children for the EATA test, which was compulsory for taking admission under the programme. “We were shocked to learn that the federal government has stopped supporting enrolment of fresh students,” they said.

The parents said that the federal government had been spending billions of rupees on so-called development schemes in tribal areas, but nothing tangible existed on the ground. They said that instead of wasting money on such projects, the government should order continuation of the scholarship programme in the best interest of poor students.

They demanded of the elected representatives to lodge a strong protest with the federal government for stopping fresh enrolment of Fata students in leading schools under the programme.

When contacted, Akhunzada Chatan, MNA from Bajaur Agency, said that he had been making efforts to restart the scholarship programme. “I have raised this issue several times on the floor of parliament,” he said.