Youth assembly members want Chitral’s educational issues resolved

PESHAWAR, Aug 24: A delegation, comprising the members of National Youth Assembly from Chitral, met the head of the higher education department Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Aftab Ahmed Khan, and briefed him about the educational issues of Chitral. The delegation was led by Abbas Hussain from Drosh.

The delegation informed the higher education department chief that Chitral spread over an area of 14,850 square kilometers and had a population of about 0.7 million. However, they regretted that the area-wise biggest district of the province still had no university despite high rate of literacy and a large number of colleges.

Two sub-campuses of the Shaheed Benazir Bhutto University and Abdul Wali Khan University have been set up in the valley but they too lacked basic facilities. The delegation suggested that if the two campuses are merged and made one university named “Chitral University” most of the issues of the area students especially females would be resolved. They said the campuses of the two universities had no computer labs, hostels and public transport system.

They also said that as Chitral was at number two or three in terms of literacy rate in the province, there was also an urgent need of setting up a board of intermediate and secondary education. Without a fully-fledged board office, students from Chitral have to visit Peshawar by spending thousands of rupees and wasting their precious time. in winter, all roads to Chitral block, making it hard for the students to reach Peshawar and return home.