Daily Times

PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) minority representatives lamented over the allocation of just one per cent quota to minorities at the professional educational institutes and government sector jobs in KP compared to five per cent in the other provinces Pakistan.

Members of the minority community told Daily Times in a consultative meeting held at a local hotel here on Wednesday the minority Christians, Hindus, Sikhs and others have very limited access to medical and engineering universities and colleges of the province and government jobs.

Jamat-e-Islami (JI) provincial wing minority General Secretary (GS) Javed Gill told this scribe that the provincial government should have proper resolution on the floor of the provincial assembly, raised the decade long one per cent quota to at least five per cent if not more in the “Naya Khyber Pakhtunkhwa” at all professional and vocational training institutes and all government sector jobs in KP.

“It is the need of the hour that a minority commission constituted in KP which shall undertake the challenges and hardships faced by the minorities across the province. This commission should also fight the legal battle of the Christians, Hindus, Sikhs and other minorities,” Javed Gill added.

Niqash Bhatti, a lecturer at the Government Commerce College Kohat said that education department had announced more than 300 Senior School Teacher (SST) vacancies in the province but not a single seat was reserved for the minorities under the current one per centquota.

“Even according to the insufficient one per cent quota, at least three senior school teachers should be employed from the minority community. However, none of the 300 advertised posts were reserved for minorities,” Niqash claimed.

He added that the Public Service Commission advertised multiple vacancies but again there was no mention of any reserved seats for the minorities. “Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan all have given five per cent representation to minority communities in government jobs except KP. This gives a clear impression of biasness against the minorities in the province,” the lecturer said.

He said that successive governments at central and provincial levels never raised their voices for the rights of the minorities and at times they tried to be usurpers for the lesser groups of population against their rightful quota.

Another Christian representative, Augustine Jacob shared that around 50 missionary schools of the province provided standard education to the youth of KP but it was difficult for students coming from the minority sections to get higher education from well reputed professional institutes like the Khyber Medical College (KMC) and University of Engineering and Technology (UET) as they were put against an overwhelming majority when it came to the limited number of seats in such institutions.

“There should be a quota system for the minority students, under which they could join well known educational institutes with relative ease. The minority students should be allowed to compete among themselves for a bigger number of seats under a new quota system instead of the current one per cent system,” Jacob added. He also revealed that KP Assembly has no representation of minority women which indicate the suffering of the community in government institutes and jobs.

“There are 50,000 registered minority voters in the province but they have no adequate representation in the provincial assembly.