ISLAMABAD, Feb 27 (APP): Federal Minister for Education and Professional Training, Rana Tanveer Hussain on Monday informed the Lower House of the Parliament that keeping in the unprecedented flood devastation in the country some 40,000 students of various universities of the flood affected areas were awarded scholarships so that they may continue their education without any interruption.
Speaking at the question hour session of the National Assembly session, the federal minister was responding to Member National Assembly, Aliya Kamran questions on waiving off of tuition fees of flood affected areas on the directions of the prime minister, it’s compliance and measures to facilitate the students of flood-hit areas.
Rana Tanveer said there was no such directive by the Prime Minister rather it was his own direction.
He further clarified that the fee were no waived off but deferred as per his direction whereas scholarships were awared to the students of the areas worst impacted by 2022 floods.
In this regard, he said some 13,000 students’ fees were deferred, over 20,000 were issued installments of their tuition fees so that they could easily pay their dues.
The Minister added that these measures were other than the schemes initiated by the prime minister for flood affected areas.
Responding to another query by MNA Aliya Kamran on charging registration fee of Rs 1500 by public sector universities for admissions in BS Programme, BS admissions on the basis of FSc prior to the final result and government measures to simplify the process, the Minister informed that the issue raised by the MNA was genuine. He informed that the non-refundable registration fee varied from Rs1500 to Rs5500 in different universities whereas it was a disparity that the universities were charging registration fee in every semester and it was wrong.
He said the private universities were independent and had their own syndicate whereas the public universities could be given direction in this regard.
The Education Minister urged the House that before tabling legislative bills should first allow the official process to start so that proper legal formalities and nitty gritty were addressed.
Education sector, he said was very important but the members of the House were putting Bills for legislation as per business which should not be done.
Responding to the query of MNA Asiya Azeem on status of teachers in primary and middle schools in the federal capital, the Education Minister said he was not satisfied with the status of people working on daily wages for the past 12 years.
He endorsed the MNA’s concern and said she rightly pointed out the issue but the issue was that educators were appointed on need basis against no sanctioned post available on daily wages or contract.
He said the government would amend laws and change the rules to facilitate these teachers. Moreover, a new law would be proposed suggesting the condition to regularise an employee working for 1-3 years in a particular public department so that he or she could avail all the benefits.
To another supplementary question by the MNA, he said he was informed that there was no situation vacant in these schools that’s why people were hired in daily wages.
However, the Education Minister confirmed that he had directed the Education Directorate to publish an advertisement for recruitment on these positions and prefer the teachers already working in the schools as they were complying to the merit.
Replying to MNA Tahira Aurangzeb’s query on universities for boys in Rawalpindi Division, he said the question was not under the mandate of the federal government rather the provincial government of the Punjab province. “If the MNA orders any in federal capital then I can raise a university overnight on her request,” he added.
