College students long deprived of free textbooks

Approximately 130,000 inter level aspirants of government institutes in the province have long been denied free textbooks in spite of the successive governments’ claim to offer the free books to the aspirants up to inter level in the educational institutes of government sectors.

As per the authorities at the higher education department, the brilliant aspirants of government schools, the FA or FSc students registered in the all 185 government schools of the province are also allowed for the free textbooks however the concluding have been underprivileged of the facility for the last 8 years.

No one from the provincial government as well as HED has raised the matter at any forum.

While giving an interview, one of the government college’s principal said “Just poor people take admission in government colleges. They would also be provided along with free books to ease a large financial load on their parents”.

He commanded that the government certify the instant supply of free books to college aspirants in series along with its decision.

The government had started offering free textbooks to the aspirants of government educational institution to inter level in the academic year 2008-2009.

It was the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal government that started the distribution of free of cost books to the aspirants of primary school level. After that, the facility was prolonged to the aspirants of secondary school level.

A senior officer at the E&SE department claims that the present PTI-led government had allotted Rs2.5 billion in the economic budget 2015-16 for providing the free books to more than 4 million aspirants who are registered in approximately 29,000 government schools.

When asked why the college aspirants are ignored in this respect, he said governmentally, colleges were under the HED and thus, it was the responsibility of HED to arrange for free textbooks for the apsirants of college. He moreover said that “we just take care of school children”.

When communicated, HED minister Mushtaq Ahmad Ghani alleged that supply of free textbooks to the aspirants of colleges was a project of the E&SE department.

He said actually, provision College aspirants long denied free textbooks of education up to the inter level was the concern of E&SE department.

He said denial of free of cost text books was unfairness to college aspirants as the aptitude was actually meant for both college and school aspirants as decided by the government.

He also claimed that “It is not enough to offer the free of cost text books to just inter students. Textbooks should be disseminated to the aspirants of higher classes also to their benefit”.