KHAR: Speakers at a conference here the other day highlighted the importance of education for sustainable peace and socio-economic development of the tribal areas.

The conference titled `Importance of education and our responsibilities` was held in Government College of Management Sciences, Khar.

Noted educationist, poet and writer Prof Mohammad Islam Armani was the chief guest, while students, teachers, educationists and social activities attended the event in numbers.

The participants mentioned that backwardness, instability, poverty and intolerance in the tribal areas were the major ills inflicting the tribesmen because of lacked of education.

On the occasion, Prof Armani said education not only ensured good job opportunities to youths, it was also necessary for promoting tolerance and friendly relations among people.

However, he noted that ratio of education in Bajaur Agency was still very low compared to rest of the country. He expressed dismay over the fact that stu-dents in Bajaur were taking less interest in getting education despite better environment.

The other speakers, including Prof Mohammad Ayub Khan, Munsif Khan and Prof Bakhat Munir Sahibabadi, pointed out that remote and backward regions of Bajaur lacked basic education facilities. They said reading habits among students had also witnessed a significant decline as they were taking much interest in unnecessary and useless activities like internet and games instead of their studies and reading of useful books.

They said parents were not keeping a proper check on their children`s activities and seldom visited the educational institutions to know about performance of their children.

They said students needed to focus full attention on education to achieve their goals. The speakers also criticised the teachers for not fulhlling their responsibilities to guide students towards book reading.

They said most teachers were either not competent or not sincere with their job despite getting huge salaries.

They stressed the need for joint efforts to attract students towards theirstudies and build reading habits among them.

NEW DENGUE CASES: As many as 15 new cases of dengue fever were detected in Bajaur Agency on Friday, raising the total number of such cases to 21 during the last over one week.

Talking to mediapersons here, medical superintendent of the agency headquarters hospital, Dr Khan Saeed, said that15freshcases ofdengue had been detected in different areas of the tribal region.

He said that all new patients who belonged to different areas of the agency had been admitted to the hospital.

According to the of ficial, the patients had been affected by dengue in Karachi, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Islamabad where they were residing due to their jobs. He claimed that the agency was so far free of dengue virus and no case was detected among the people residing here.

Dr Saeed said that the patients had been kept in the isolation ward of AHQ hospital, Khar. He said that condition of the affected people was stable while two of the patients had been shifted to Peshawar due to their serious condition.