Promotion of education top priority, says CM Khattak

PESHAWAR, Sept 29: KP Chief Minister Pervez Khattak has reiterated the commitment of his coalition government that supremacy of law, justice and merit would be ensured at all costs, said a press release. He was chairing a meeting about regularizing the affairs of institute of Business and Management Sciences (IBMS) in Agriculture University Peshawar, including its accreditation with Higher Education Commission (HEC) and service structure of its teaching employees. The meeting held at CM Secretariat Peshawar was also attended by Provincial Minister for Information and Higher Education Mushtaq Ghani, Shehryar Afridi MNA, VC Agriculture University Prof. Dr. Zahooor Swati, Special Secretary to Chief Minister Muhamamd Israr Khan, Chairman CM Complaint Cell and Business Coordinator Al-Haj Dilroz Khan besides the faculty members of IBMS. The meeting took stock of all the issues in the agenda and took necessary decisions in this regard. Pervez Khattak reaffirmed the pledge that standard of education would be improved in the province at all levels wherein drastic steps with far reaching impacts were being taken. He said that besides considerable increase in funds for education sector in the budget, educational research and creative capabilities of the students and teachers were being fully encouraged. He said that all the academic institutions were being promoted with full impetus. He regretted that this important faculty was established in the Agriculture University Campus but its affairs were run on temporary and contract basis. He further deplored that it was injustice to establish a faculty but ignore the regularization of its affairs including its teaching staff and lingering it on for last three years. He said that such things besides pushing the students into uncertainty also harmed standard of the education. It was decided that the Vice Chancellor of Agriculture University would start work on the service structure of the teaching staff after the settlement of accreditation issue of IBMS with HEC. Similarly a committee headed by Minister Higher Education Mushtaq Ghani was constituted to oversee progress on resolving its issues on quarterly basis. The committee included Secretary Agriculture, Lives Stock and Cooperative Department, Secretary Higher Education, VC AU Peshawar, Head of IBMS and a representative of the contract employees of IBMS. It was already decided that the VC AU would call a meeting of the University Syndicate and would resolve the issue of one day gap in the service contract of the faculty. The Chief Minister assured that all the problems face by the educational institution would be solve on priority basis as he said education and health sectors were the top most priorities of provincial govt. He maintained that emergency has been declared in both these sectors for this very purpose to achieve set targets. He ask the heads of educational institutions and authorities of education department to work round the clock and devotedly achieve the targets well in time.]]>