Daily Times

PESHAWAR: Awami National Party (ANP) women representatives in the District Council criticised the ruling party for allocation of minimum resources to education, saying the appointed committee for education, failed to present its report before the Council since its inception.

Speaking to the media at the Peshawar District Council, Mehreen Kamran, said that claiming tall as the champion of education reforms the PTI government had completely avoided the need of the sector.

She said that allocated funds for the sector would be insufficient to rehabilitate the already exhausted sector, adding that most of the women folk representatives from the ruling bench demanding more for the development projects, were unaware of the fragile condition of the education institutes in the district.

“Scores of schools in the rural areas of the provincial capital are still out of pure water, proper sanitation and damaged or without boundaries walls” she claimed.

Mehreen said that a capacity building of the teachers should be carried out under the supervision of the District Council representative and women representatives of the council should be appointed for the purpose of monitoring. She said that the PTI women’s representatives in the Council were unable to propose or debate any bill for the betterment of education in the district.

She alleged that the representatives were uneducated and had no political aptitude to carry out the formalities of the session appropriately and put its share in any legislation process on the council level.

“The local bodies system has provided the best platform for each elected representative either male or female to highlight the current issues and propose solutions through a bill but unfortunately mostly women representatives are likely unaware” she added. However, Saira Shaukat, a woman’s representative from the PTI said that three bills had been proposed in the council but none of the bill had underwent the discussion of the members.

Saira Shaukat said that the first proposed bill demanded the establishment of a female student complaint cell in the district education office. The second was the abolishing the practice of extra homework and the third was a separate cell to cater to only the primary education system in the district.

She also lamented over the performance of the women representatives in the District Council and said none of the bills neither debated nor were taken seriously to be discussed on the floor. She said: “It’s a need to be vocal and rhetoric on the floor if you want to do something positive but our women are shy and mostly uneducated”.