Enforced education's policy adopted in FATA

Additional PA holds jirga with tribal elders at Landikotal.

Additional political agent Khyber Syed Ahmad Jan flanked by other line departments’ heads visited Landikotal and held an important jirga with local tribal elders at Tehsil office her on Wednesday. The additional PA Khyber while elaborating the government’s policy regarding the enforced education of children made it clear that strict action would be taken against those parents who fail to send their children to the schools. He urged the tribal elders to disseminate the government policy in relation to their children’s education so that education ratio in FATA could be taken up to control illiteracy.

Additional PA Khyber said that lack of education was one of the main reasons of extremism in FATA. APA Syed Ahmad Jan also told them that an oversight or monitoring committee would be formed comprising local elders and journalists so that they could point out shortcomings in schemes or any use of sub standard material in projects.

An insider told that malik Abdul Razaq Afridi and Malik Ashraf Zakha Khel spoke in the jirga on behalf of the elders to apprise the officials of their concerns and other local problems such as poor condition of the schools and drinking water schemes. Some participants of the jirga also expressed dissatisfaction over the apathy of the line departments to start any project in Landikotal that could benefit the people in general.

But here it is worth mentioning that some local elders expressed their reservations about the delaying tactics adopted by the heads of the line departments and the additional political agent himself. People alleged the Additional PA Khyber Syed Ahmad Jan for hoodwinking the masse and said that he was just showing green gardens to the backward tribesmen to prolong his tenure. The local people said that in the last ten years the government could not take appropriate measures regarding development of the tribal areas to bring the backward FATA at par with the developed areas of the country.