PESHAWAR: Provincial elementary and secondary education minister Mohammad Atif on Wednesday embarrassed the Jamaat-i-Islami in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly by asking the ruling PTI`s ally to quit the government if it was not satisfied with its performance.

`If all departments are not performing well, then why you (JI) are not leaving the government,` the PTI minister said on the floor of the house while responding to the criticism of the government by JI MPA Mohammad Ali Khan.

Mohammad Ali retorted, `when we speak the truth, the education minister becomes angry.

Deputy speaker Professor Meher Taj Roghani chaired the session.

ANP parliamentary leader Sardar Hussain Babak tried to add fuel to the fire by saying `Mr. Atifhas given a very good suggestion to the JI but the latter has yet to reply to it.` However, the JI ministers and members present in the house didn`t say anything about the minister`s remarks.

The minister responded bitterly when Mohammad Ali of JI said all departments including education, health, irrigation, public health engineering etc were not functioning properly.

Earlier, the elementary and secondary education department in its answer to the question of Mohammad Ali informed the house that only five of the 67 higher and high secondary schools in Upper Dir had headmasters.

The mover said if the education department couldn`t provide headmasters and headmistresses to the schools during the last three years, then when it would happen.

He asked how the schools would function without administrative heads.

`The future of thousands of boy and girl students is at stake as the educational institutions have been functioning without administrative heads since long,` he said.

The lawmaker said the government had been claiming of con-structing of schools, science and computer laboratories and other initlatives but no such activity had taken place in Upper Dir.

The angry minister again attacked the JI after he said if the finance department, whose portfolio was with it (JI), was not releasing funds, how schools would be established.

Provincial finance minister Muzaffar Said belongs to JI.

The education minister said everything was not perfect in the education department but it had initiated many development projects for the betterment of education sector.

He claimed that 40,000 teachers had been recruited through the National Testing Service, while billions of rupees worth of funds had been utilised in a transparent manner.

Adviser to the chief minister on prisons Malik Qasim Khan said Karak district was also short of government schools.

`There is no government school for boys and girls in 18 kilometers radius,` he said.

Mufti Said Janan of the JUI-F said work on schools in various areas hadn`t been completed during the last three years as the govern-ment had stopped releasing funds to contractors.

He said MPAs could be seen roaming in the provincial secretariat from morning to afternoon requesting the departments to release funds as developmental activities had stopped.

Speaking on a point of order, ANP parliamentary leader Sardar Babak said no one would be allowed todissolvetheKhyberPakhtunkhwa Assembly.

`The opposition MPAs would defend this august house on all fronts,` he said.

Mr. Babak expressed these views in the context of the PTI leadership`s threat that it could go for the dissolution of the KP Assembly in the ongoing confrontation with the PML-N and Nov 2 Islamabad lockdown.

The house passed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Lissaail-i-Wal Maroom Foundation (Amendment) Bill 2016, which was tabled by senior minister Sikandar Sherpao.

Finance minister Muzaffar Said tabled the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Public procurement Regularity Authority (Amendment) Bill, 2016.

The chair adjourned the session until November 21.