Sunday, October 25, 2009

Pukhtunkhwa's Education sector hit hard

PESHAWAR: The militancy and military operations in parts of the Frontier province and adjacent tribal areas have badly affected the already neglected education sector the most. An evidence of this was the NWFP government’s decision to keep all the educational institutions closed for another week.

After a pause of about seven days, educational activities in almost the entire country are being resumed today, but students across NWFP and the tribal areas would not attend their classes as per the directives of the provincial government.

The NWFP government at first was reluctant to close down the schools despite announcements by other provinces to pause educational activities for some days due to the wave of terrorist activities across the country. However, the suicide blasts at International Islamic University, Islamabad followed by defusing of two bombs at a girls’ school in a suburban locality of the provincial metropolis forced the government to close all the public and private sector schools.

And now when the Inter-Services Public Relations, federal government and other provinces have announced reopening of the school, the Frontier government has decided to extend the unusual vacation for another week for security threats.

Education has certainly been affected the most by the specific law and order situation in the province and tribal areas for the last more than one year. With the surge of militant activities in Swat and elsewhere in the province, schools, particularly the girls’ schools have become the targets of the militants who continue with torching and blowing up sprees.

Around 200 educational institutions have been blown up in Swat alone. Similarly scores of schools were damaged in the twin districts of Dir, Bajaur Agency, elsewhere in the province and tribal areas.

Then came the military operation due to which the students and their teachers along with their families had to shift to the safer districts in search of peace, depriving them of studies for about four long months. The government offered some relaxation to the students by awarding them one-step promotion, but this cannot compensate for the loss of their precious time and studies.

The higher secondary education students had to miss their examinations. Though the board declared all of the intermediate students of Malakand division qualified and awarded them marks equivalent to the marks they had obtained in their previous class, many students were not happy with it, as they thought that they failed to acquire seats in the professional — medical and engineering — institutions for not appearing in the examinations.

Not only the students of the militancy and military-operation-affected areas, but those of the non-affected district also suffered loss of time, as their schools and colleges were used to house the internally displaced people for several months and they had not been able to attend their studies.

The most interesting is the sufferings of the students of the remote Chitral district where there exists no law and order problem. But with the announcement of the government about closure of education institutions, educational activities came to a halt in Chitral as well.

The two-week closure of schools would affect the cold regions of the province the most, as the management of educational institutions are planning for long winter vacations there and the teachers and students want to cover the specified portion of their courses before the winter vacations.

In Peshawar and other central districts, where the studies of the students are being affected due to the closure of their institutions, many of them will have to face a delay in examinations and admissions.

The Board of Intermediate & Secondary Education Peshawar has postponed its practical tests of the ongoing secondary school certificate examinations. Khyber Law College University of Peshawar has delayed its exam. The University of Engineering and Technology Peshawar has also suspended its B Tech examinations. The University of Peshawar cancelled its tests for admissions to the MA/MSc. New dates for the examinations have not been fixed yet.

No comments: