Incentivising education: Degree college students demand promised laptops

86 students were promised laptops, 60 got them.

DERA GHAZI KHAN:

Nearly 100 people, mostly students and their parents, on Sunday protested against Dera Ghazi Khan Degree College principal for not distributing laptops announced for 26 students.

The students gathered in front of the college entrance on Sunday at around noon, carrying placards and posters. They chanted slogans against the principal, urging the chief minister and the district coordination officer to direct her to distribute the promised laptops.

Asma Urooj, one of the protesters, told The Express Tribune that the Punjab government had sent laptops for 86 students of the college in September after results for intermediate exams were announced.

She said the principal had distributed 60 laptops and had told the remaining students that they had been disqualified from the list issued by the government.

She said first the students had approached the principal and when she had not agreed to give them the laptops, they had sent their parents to meet her. Sabina Javed said several applications had been moved with the district government to take notice of the situation but to no avail.

Javed Iqbal, her father, said a group of parents had tried to meet with the principal several times to discuss the matter but she was either too busy to meet them or told them that she was not authorised to distribute the laptops. He said she also misbehaved with parents and students who broached the subject.

He said parents had also written to Dera Ghazi Khan commissioner and Degree College Dera Ghazi Khan director about the issue.

He said the principal had wrongfully disqualified students from a list issued from the government.

“We don’t know what she wants to do with the laptops that do not belong to her,” he said.

The protesters dispersed from the college after a few hours, saying they would return every day until the laptops were handed out.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Dera Ghazi Khan Degree College Principal Nighat Tahir said laptops of students with poor attendance had been withheld.

She said several students had not enrolled for college after intermediate examinations.

She said they had been disqualified according to a criteria issued by the government.

“If they want the laptops, they can write to the director or the commissioner,” she said.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 12^th, 2015.