PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has launched online admission system in 16 colleges, situated in the provincial metropolis.

Addressing a news conference at Peshawar Press Club on Thursday, Provincial Minister for Higher Education Mushtaq Ahmad Ghani said that 24,000 students applied online for getting admission in those colleges.He said that the facility, started as pilot project, would later be extended to other districts of the province. The step, he said, was taken for ensuring transparency in college admissions.

The minister said that initiation of onlineadmissions was a big achievement of the higher education department. He said that Higher Education Regulatory Authority was being strengthened to regulate private colleges.

Mr Ghani said that colleges working under the supervision of Frontier Education Foundation were being regularised and brought under the supervision of higher education department.

The minister said that like schools, the provincial government was hiring services of monitors to check the attendance of lecturers and missing f acilities in public sector colleges in the province.

The provincial government, he said, was also giving autonomy to public sector colleges on the pattern of government-run hospitals in the province.

Mr Ghani said that 19 universities were presently functioning in the province while four new universities were being established that included Technology University Nowshera, Women University Mardan and Women University Swabi. The minister said that government relaxed the upper age limit for women in admission to colleges and universities. He said that for the first time annual budgets of all the universities were approved by holding senate meetings before June 30.

Mr Ghani said that the universities would not formulate their fund raising plans to ensure financial sustainability. In the past, he said, all the powers were exercised by the vice-chancellors but now the universities` senate would take the decisions to bring transparency in policiesand avoid one-man show.

The minister said that model statutes for all the universities in the province were in the final stage for approval. He said that commerce and management colleges had also been transferred to higher education department. During the last two years, he said, number of colleges in the province was 218. He said that 29 new colleges were established now and 41 were in the pipeline.

Besides, the minister said, government started BS programme in 40 government colleges in 31 disciplines, catering to the needs of around 14,000 students across the province.

The newly established college teachers training academy would play vital role in training of the newly appointed teachers, the minister said.

He said that the principals of the colleges would also be appointed through search committees and 500 teachers sitting additionally in dif ferent colleges of the province would soon be reshuffled to fill the vacant posts. Mr Ghani said that provincial government established endowment fund to the tune of Rs2,235 million to extend financial support for research, faculty development support programme and award scholarships to students on merit. He said that the chief minister`s educational endowment fund amounting to Rs1,000 million for students in the indigenous BS programme of reputed educational institutions and foreign scholarships for PhD in top 10 ranking universities of the world was another achievement of the government.