MANSEHRA: Local government representatives and residents on Monday demanded of the government to release funds for the salaries of teachers and other staff members of schools and colleges functioning under the Elementary Education Foundation Khyber Pakhtunkhwa across the prov-ince.

`Five out of 88 schools and colleges functioning in our district are on the brink of closure as the government hasn`t paid salaries to teachers and other staff since Feb last year,` chairman of Safada village council Basharat Ali Swati told reporters here.

Accompanied by his council`s representatives and residents, Mr Swati said that poverty-hit girls and boys attending five of 88 schools and colleges across the province had been facing the risk of losing their education due to a lack of funds.

`A girls` college has been functioning in Safada village council where underprivileged girls have received education.Now, it might be closed as teachers and other staff members can`t continue to work without salary,` he said.

The council chairman said the government had failed to release funds for teachers and other staff working under the Elementary Education Foundation`s education support programme and new school initiatives in 88 schools and colleges throughout the province.

`If the schools and colleges functioning under the Elementary Education Foundation Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are closed, the future of thousands of male and female students will be at risk, he said.Mr Swati said parents of girls attending the only female college in his village council frequently visited his office, urging him to raise the issue with the provincial government to immediately release salaries.

`We want to make it clear to the provincial government that if the salaries are not released within a week, we will take to the streets in protest,` he said.

Meanwhile, Pakistan Peoples Party provincial general secretary Shujah Salim Khan on Monday said his party believed in people`s prosperity through development projects.

`Our party believes in empowering common people, which is why we created dis-tricts and tehsils in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa during our coalition government with the Awami National Party in the province,` Mr Khan told a partyfunction here.

PPP divisional president Malik Farooq, former MPA Sajida Tabassum and district president Malik Mumtaz were alsoin attendance.

The PPP general secretary said his party had created most of the districts in the Hazara division.

`If we come into power in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, our government will follow suit, and Tanawal will be granted the status of another districtin the Hazara division,` he said.