The KP Govt is planning on the privatization of 55 colleges in the province after transferring 1500 schools to the private sector earlier this year. The Higher Education Department (HED) has drawn up a list of institutions which are being considered. The biggest share is of Dera Ismail Khan, native district of Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur and Governor Faisal Karim Kundi, where seven colleges are proposed.
Swabi, the constituency of Education Minister Faisal Tarakai, has six colleges listed. Madrassas located in South Waziristan and Karak add five, Bannu and Battagram each adds four. There are also three colleges each registered in Orakzai, Abbottabad, Haripur, Mansehra, Nowshera, Kurram, Shangla and Kohistan. There is one in Hangu, North Waziristan and the FR Tank, Hangu, Lower Dir, Malakand and one each in Peshawar.
Secretary Higher Education Kamran Afridi told us that the move is aimed to cover the colleges which have less than 500 student body or poor man-in-strength and security issues. Enrolment, he added, in others is in the low tens, and in some, allied to the “bogus” admissions. Afridi emphasized that no teachers will be fired as staff will be transferred to other colleges in which 3,000 teaching positions are vacant.
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Nonetheless, teachers are against the proposal. Abdul Hameed Afridi, the President of the Professors, Lecturers and Librarians Association, suggested that the majority of colleges are getting along fine and the only way out of the present situation is to resolve shortages in personnel and gaps in the infrastructure by the government. Teachers say what is really needed is reforms and not the privatization of schools. None the less the privatization of 55 colleges by the KP Govt is under consideration still.
