(MENAFN - Khaleej Times) On the directives of the President, His Highness Shaikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE Project to Assist Pakistan has established 40 world-class schools and institutes and handed them over to the local authorities in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan.
Nearly 21,000 boys and girls have already started classes.
A grand opening ceremony was held at one of the boys' schools in the presence of Abdullah Khalifa Al Ghafli, Director of the Project; Major-General Zahir Shah, Commander of the GOC 45th Engineers Division of the Pakistani Armed Forces, a group of Pakistani army commanders and senior government officials.
Al Ghafli and the senior accompanying civilian and military attendants unveiled the memorial plaque declaring the official opening of the school and paid tributes to Shaikh Khalifa for the grant which constitutes a necessary, qualitative addition for improving and upgrading the education sector infrastructure in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. They also took a tour of the school building where they inspected classes, scientific and computer laboratories, sports facilities and other support services. They also met with the school principal and the teaching and administrative staff.
Al Ghafli opened another school for girls and toured its various sections.
The project, which focuses on four major sectors, education, public health, roads and bridges, comes within the framework of the good efforts by the UAE to help Arab and Islamic countries as one of the leading donors in the field of humanitarian aid and international development around the world.
School bags were distributed to the students as part of the 30,000 bag programme launched by the project to assist needy students across Pakistan.
Abdullah Al Ghafli, Director of the Project, said: "It's a great honour for us to implement directives and initiatives of Shaikh Khalifa with a humanitarian and development touch in education for the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. The initiative underlines Shaikh Khalifa's determination to extend assistance to students so as to get learning facilities in an ideal environment."
Al Ghafli indicated that the UAE President's directives had brought to life modern educational facilities worth US27.6 million accommodating up to 28,000 students. The project has built and rebuilt 35 schools and colleges, two model schools, 40 primary to secondary schools, 11 technical, technological and vocational colleges and institutes.
He announced that the project has already started implementing the directives of Shaikh Khalifa for construction of two model schools in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and South Waziristan, with each school costing 500,000.
He added that the educational facilities had been carried out in different parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, South Waziristan and Bajaur, the areas where schools were destroyed and there was a lack of schools nearby.
