KP Government Plans to Privatize 55 More Colleges After Schools

After privatizing 1,500 schools earlier this year, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government is now preparing to hand over 55 public colleges to private management. This move has sparked a major debate among education experts, teachers, and the public about whether privatization will actually improve the education system or create new problems.

The Higher Education Department (HED) has already prepared a list of the colleges being considered. According to reports, the largest share is from Dera Ismail Khan, which is also the home district of Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur and Governor Faisal Karim Kundi. A total of seven colleges from this district have been included.

In Swabi, the constituency of Provincial Education Minister Faisal Tarakai, six colleges are set to be handed over. Similarly, five colleges each from South Waziristan and Karak, four from Bannu and Battagram, and three from Orakzai have been marked for privatization.

Other districts are also part of the plan. Abbottabad, Haripur, Mansehra, Nowshera, Kurram, Shangla, and Kohistan each have two colleges on the list. Meanwhile, Peshawar, Hangu, Lower Dir, Malakand, North Waziristan, and FR Tank each have one college identified for possible transfer to the private sector.

Speaking about the issue, Secretary Higher Education Kamran Afridi said that no final decision has been made yet. He explained that the government’s main aim is to increase the efficiency and capacity of these colleges. According to the rules, every new college should start with at least 500 students and eventually expand to 3,000 students. But in reality, many of these institutions have very low enrollment numbers—some even in double digits.

Afridi also pointed out that in several cases, the student admissions are “bogus” or only on paper, which means that the colleges are not functioning as they should. In his view, allowing the private sector to take control could improve the quality of education in these struggling institutions.

At the same time, he assured that teachers will not lose their jobs. Instead, staff members from these colleges will be transferred to other nearby institutions where there is a shortage of faculty. Currently, more than 6,000 colleges in KP are already facing serious staff shortages, and around 3,086 new teaching posts are vacant, waiting for cabinet approval for recruitment.

Despite these assurances, the government’s plan has received strong criticism from educators. Abdul Hameed Afridi, President of the Professors, Lecturers, and Librarians Association, said that teachers had expressed serious reservations to Higher Education Minister Meena Khan Afridi. The minister reportedly promised that these concerns would be carefully reviewed and that colleges with strong objections might be removed from the privatization list.

Educators argue that most government colleges are performing well, especially in urban areas, and only a few institutions in remote districts are struggling due to security issues, teacher shortages, and lack of facilities. They believe that instead of privatizing colleges, the government should invest in improving infrastructure, hiring more staff, and ensuring student safety.

Critics also highlighted that students from KP’s government colleges have historically performed very well in competitive exams at the national level, proving the strength of the public education system. “If history shows that our students have excelled in the past, then the real problem is not the system itself, but the lack of government attention to key issues,” Abdul Hameed Afridi argued.

For now, the final decision on the privatization of 55 colleges remains pending, but the debate has opened a wider question: should education, especially at the college level, be handed over to private management, or should the government strengthen its own system to provide quality education to all?

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