Daily Times

PESHAWAR: Several developmental projects in the educational sector are running smoothly as no cuts have been made in the cash-starved Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, claimed officials of the education department.

Talking to Daily Times the Additional Secretary of Elementary & Secondary Education (E&SE) Department of KP, Qaiser Alam said on Friday that all educational projects proposed in the 2016-17 budget were running smoothly and the government was committed to meet its target for the current fiscal year.

“Around Rs 200 million were issued by the finance department to education department in the first two quarters between July and December 2016, for the ongoing projects and none of the project would suffer due financial issue,” Qaiser Alam maintained.

According to the budget documents, the provincial government will allocate Rs 12,453 million for a total of 72 projects, out of which 64 are ongoing with the allocation of Rs 10,030.007 million and eight were the new projects with Rs 2,422.993 million. Major targets of the education sector in the current budget of KP were the establishment of 200 Smart Schools, first-ever Girls Cadet College one each in Mardan and Swat, 1,300 Girls Community Schools, 160 new primary schools, 500 Information Technology Labs in High and Higher Secondary Schools, up gradation of 50 primary, 50 Middle and 50 High Schools on need basis and standardization of 200 Higher Secondary Schools in the province. However, in the view of the above proposed projects the education department has established only one Smart school at Lakki Marwat district in the last five months. The department faced an uphill task of establishing 199 more such schools in the remaining seven months of the running fiscal year. It merits mentioning here that the PTI-led provincial government was stressing on highlighting their achievement of initiating the Smart Schools project while talking about their performance in the uplift of education.

Realizing the difficulties in the challenge faced, Qaiser Alam conceded that the Smart School project might take more than one year as the department was facing problems in acquiring land for the proposed schools in different areas all over the province.

However, Qaiser Alam stressed that the education department was on the right track to complete all other ongoing projects in the education sector on time and utilized the entire allocated amount. “The government has already completed the project of the 300 Girls community schools in the province,” he said.

The KP education department was also lagging behind in achieving its target of the construction of the two promised Girls’ Cadet Colleges supposed to be established in Mardan and Swat divisions. An official of the educational department, requesting anonymity said that the current flow of the financial crunches in the province was likely to have an impact on the construction of the proposed cadet colleges.

“It is likely that this project too, will not be completed on time and it will be made part of the next year budget,” the official claimed.