Daily Times

PESHAWAR: The education rationalization policy along with new infrastructure scheme implementation in Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) have put the future of the students at high risk, the new policies have slow down the rehabilitation process in the education sector in the tribal region.

As per the rationalisation policy, a primary school if situated two kilometers away from another institute the government under the policy close it down, while any middle school situated within five kilometres and with less than 40 students will also be closed down. The new schemes of infrastructure involved that primary school will be consist of six rooms instead of two which have delayed the construction work on more than 80 per cent of schools.

This move has been vehemently criticised by the representatives from Child Rights Movement (CRM), Taleemi Islahi Jirga as it meant to compel students to travel long distances for learning in government schools.

CRM Coordinator Zar Ali Khan said, “The rationalisation policy, which was introduced earlier this year, will create more hurdles for children.” He added, “FATA is already facing challenges in the education sector, with thousands of children out of school in the region.”

He pointed out, “More schools need to be constructed and more children need to be educated.” Khyber Agency Education Officer Abdur Rashid, said that the shift in government education policy, new scheme of construction involved that there will be six-rooms Primary schools instead of two and more facilitation for Middle and High schools.

Therefore, the combination of the two new policies at the same time simultaneously risked the future of the students of the FATA. On one hand it slow down the construction work and other hand it reduce already existed education institutions.

Abdur Rashid said that it is time consuming process to build six rooms instead of two rooms and the students of the FATA as per the policy wait for long time to enter in government schools.

However, he said that construction work on government schools in Khyber Agency has been completed and soon education directorate of Fata secretariat will hand it over to Agency officer to be opened.

Social activist Nangyal Bethani said, “There are thousands of educated youth in Fata, but they have not been hired as teachers.” He said the government and Fata administration allocated funds and resources for the development of the region but “are not ensuring those are spent in a transparent manner”. He said that both rationalisation policy of the federal government and new scheme of infrastructure of the Khyber Pakhtukhwa (KP) government shows that both stockholders were not serious to rehabilitee the region on emergency basis in the field of education.