PESHAWAR, Nov 30: The European Union will provide 30 million euros for development of the education sector in the NWFP. A two-member delegation of the European Union announced this at a meeting with Provincial Education Minister Maulana Fazle Ali Haqqani here on Tuesday.

The delegation comprised Thorsten Bargfrede, second secretary of the delegation of the European Commission to Pakistan, and Tuija Stenback, project director of the Helsinki consulting group.

Maulana Haqqani briefed the delegation about the steps taken by the government to improve the working of the education sector.

He said the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal government had established an independent women university and a women medical college and increased the number of schools and degree colleges.

The government, he said, had been providing free books to school students as a result of which the number of schoolgoing children had increased by half a million.

The delegation assured the minister of EU’s all out support for enhancement of the performance of the education sector in the NWFP.