Daily Times

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government ousted two most important projects of the education department from 2017-18 budget shows priority of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government relatively diverted from education sector.

In the budget of 2016-17, PTI leadership was taking pride of novel initiative by establishing 200 smart schools and construction of several female hostels for the working women of the education in the different districts of the province.

Surprisingly, the provincial government due to continue financial crunches not only failed to establish a single smart school in the last budget but completely ousted the planning from the ongoing budget.

The Annual Development Program (ADP) 2016-17 postulate the establishment of the smart school which was also called container schools with estimated cost of Rs one billion.

The officials of the education department said on the request of anonymity that the department concern has been facing land requisition issue for the smart school.

However, declined to comment the reason why the most needed planning of the education sector was virtually ousted from the ongoing budget the officials intend to perform in the last budget of the province.

It is pertinent to mention here that the idea of 200 smart schools was the most glairing component in the budget of 2016-17, but the project did not see the light throughout the year.

The complicated structure of the school could not agree the education department with Planning and Development (P&D) and Communication and Works (C&D) departments to start work on the project the officials shared.

Moreover, one another most important project of the PTI government in the education sector at limbo, the construction of the six female girls hostels in the province on need base.

“Construction of 06 Cluster Hostels (Female) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on need basis (Phase-III) (A) PDWP 25/03/15” never see the light and finally the idea was discard from last election budget.

Additionally, the launching of household survey for the assessment of out schools children was also the target of last two previous budgets which become part of the last budget.

However, The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf led provincial government in KP has raised allocation for elementary and secondary education by 17 per cent to Rs 138 billion in the budget 2017-18.

The documents of the ongoing budget show that the provincial government would spend around Rs14 billion on 77 different projects of the elementary and secondary education.

The officials of the education department claimed that hopefully entire projects remain on the cool shelves in the previous budgets would be successfully completed in the last budget.