Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor, Haji Ghulam Ali here Wednesday said that the quality higher education and research studies in universities were vital for sustainable economic progress and development of the country. Briefing newsmen about the fiscal analysis of KP universities 2021-2024 report pre-pared by the Governor’s Secretariat KP here, the Governor said that no country could achieve goals of economic prosperity and development unless it equipped its people with an ornament of quality higher education and concentrated on excellent re-search work. He said the research based education generates employment opportunities and alleviates poverty in society.
The Governor said that a total of 34 public sector universities were providing quality higher education to students in KP despite financial constraints. Haji Ghulam Ali said that the revenue of most of the public sectors universities was decreasing and expenditures were increasing due to poor planning and wrong selection of sites for the establishment of new universities by the past governments. He said that only one percent was being spent on research work which was very low compared to international standards.
The Governor said that in last four to five months, eight public sector universities in KP were functioning without a vice chancellor while VCs of additional seven universities are going to retire shortly. He said that the former PTI government has done great injustice with the universities after passing an act that complicated the appointment of vice chancellors and KP’s domiciled human resource for induction in public sector universities. The Governor said that VCs in all universities would be appointed strictly on merit and no compromise would be made on quality of education. The education grandeur of Edwards College Peshawar would be restored, he said.
