PESHAWAR, March 5: The board of directors of Frontier Elementary Education Foundation on Tuesday approved an administrative structure and budgetary provisions for the organization at its first meeting.

NWFP Governor Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah presided over the meeting held at Governor’s House.

The meeting decided to meet basic requirements of the organization on emergent basis so as to help it achieve maximum results within the shortest possible time and constituted a committee headed by the secretary schools and literacy to sort out initial problems in this respect.

Speaking on the occasion, the governor said the foundation had to face a great challenge to bring educational development, especially in the most backward areas. It must have to march ahead courageously through a transparent process, he added. He desired that removal of deficiencies in educating women must be a focal point.

The foundation, the governor said, must adopt a focussed approach to materialize its aims and objectives. In fact, he remarked, almost 700,000 children were out of schools in the province which had to be brought in the school network.

For this purpose, he said, the education department, foundations and the intermediate & secondary boards should develop teamwork spirit and no effort should be spared for the better utilization of resources.

He said services of the skilled people should be hired from the market who should be entrusted new targets to operate the foundation. At the same time, the non-development expenditure should be restricted to minimum level and productive side must be given due advantage, he added.

Earlier, the meeting was informed that Rs500 million are expected to be raised as seed money for the foundation, out of which provision of Rs200 million have been committed by President Gen Pervez Musharraf.  

The foundation will be run on the pattern of Frontier Education Foundation and its role will be restricted to the development of schools. Besides extending loans to private sector, it will also directly invest in the promotion of educational facilities, especially in the remote areas.

The meeting was attended by Provincial Education Minister Maulana Fazal Ali, Secretary Schools and Literacy Amjad Shahid Afridi, Peshawar BISE chairman, Additional Secretary Finance Abdul Rashid, Frontier Education Foundation Managing Director (MD) Khalid Sultan Khawaja, Frontier Elementary Education Foundation MD Mrs Sarwat Jehan and others.