The governor said the human resource development enjoyed clear edge over all other means of development and there existed a number of examples of developed nations the world over.
Stressing the need for promoting quality education, the Governor said the human resource development was must to achieve this cherished goal.
In fact, the Governor said there was dire need to take special measures to promote education in the country, especially in the NWFP, to bring a change both in social and economic sectors.
This, he remarked, was also must to promote the culture of tolerance and accommodation and get rid of trends of conflicts, disputes and grudges prevailing under different contexts in the society.
Referring to the educational deterioration, the Governor said: "We as a nation have committed serious mistakes with politicisation in educational institutions, lack of disciplinary action against the individuals as well as the institutions for their failure in performance of their responsibilities and allocation of required magnitude of resources for the promotion of quality education at the top.
"So much so," he added, "we have even failed to take proper action against such institutions, which have been facing 100 percent failure in the examinations.
"The trend of politicisation in the educational institutions," he added, "has reached to a point where even non-issues are being made issues to serve the purposes of particular political parties."
The Governor said there was no example of this situation in the rest of the world.
Appreciating the launching of computerised online system by the Peshawar BISE, the Governor expressed the confidence that all the remaining boards of the province would also not only shift over their affairs to it, but also connect themselves with each other as well as the relevant institutions shortly.
He also mentioned the decisions recently taken by the boards of the province, and said the provision of computer hardware were the major hurdle and, hopefully, the problem would be resolved within a month.
However, he made it clear that the introduction of online computerised system was a joint effort of all the boards and they deserved to be appreciated for making headway towards modernisation to control the difficulties and miseries of the students jointly.
Highlighting the responsibilities of the intermediate and secondary boards, the Governor said that no doubt reforms had been implemented to a great extent at the boards level, yet they had to make more serious efforts to completely wipe out the curse of cheating at the level of examination centres.
In fact, he said, involvement of any individual, either the students or the outsiders, in the cheating was an un-forgivable act.
The teachers, who indulged in this curse, had no right to remain associated with the system of education, he warned.
The Governor also said that the boards had also to act as regulatory authorities to ensure quality education in the educational institutions and they should have to eliminate the chances of exploitation of the students by the private institutions.
Referring to the measures taken so far to protect the talented students from financial difficulties, the Governor said that all the boards had been bounded to provide a sufficient amount as scholarship to the top position-holders of secondary and intermediate examinations within a couple of days of the announcement of results.
Speaking next, Provincial Minister for Education Maulana Fazal Ali paid rich tributes to the Governor for making constant efforts for the promotion of education both in the province and its adjoining tribal areas.
The Minister for Science and Technology Hussain Ahmad Kanju, in his address said: "We must have to focus upon the promotion of modern technology to achieve the objet of real progress in any field, especially in the education sector and keeping this fact in mind, the present government has already taken serious steps in this respect."
He also mentioned measures taken so far and said that a sufficient progress had been made with regard to hospital management, police department and certain other sectors.
The Chairman of the Board, Brigadier Manzoor Iqbal Bangash (Retd), presenting the address of welcome highlighted the reforms introduced in the board, and said that with the launching of computerised online system not only the facility of dealing affairs regarding conduct of examinations had been brought at the door steps of the students but through other measures their difficulties and miseries had also been decreased to a great extent as well.
He also referred to the conversion of both DMC and provisional certificate into a single document as well as their free of cost provision soon after the declaration of results, availability of original certificates within four months instead of past practice of two years, reduction of the volume of examination admission forms from four pages to a single page, waiver of the condition of submitting affidavit on stamp paper as well as advertisement in the press for getting duplicate certificates and introduction of onetime registration with the board for all sorts of examinations.
He said that all such measures were meant to facilitate the students.
Further, he said, not only fee level had been decreased on all accounts, but in most of the cases it had been totally eliminated. The elimination of examination centre fee, which was used to be received at the rate of Rs 10, 000 for each centre on its first establishment as well as the inspection fee of private educational institutions, he added, was the visible example in this respect.
Apart from this, he added the educational institutions, having examination centres, would be provided rupees five to each student, appearing in the examination as grant in lieu of services to be provided by them from the next year.
Earlier, the Governor formally inaugurated the computerised online system and inspected its different counters.
He desired that all the relevant record should be linked to this system in such a way so as the respective students could find solutions of their problems from a single point and they could not be bothered to wander from pillar to post.
He was informed that under this system, scratch cards of different values would be provided to the students through banks to enable them to pay their dues even while sitting at their home.
Meanwhile, facility of net cafe has also been made available within the premises of the board for the students, who desire to deal their matters at their own without contacting the relevant counters even after visiting the board.
A separate counter has also been set up for ladies as well.
Prior to that the Governor distributed cash awards and certificates amongst the talented students and officials of the board for their extra-ordinary performance during 2004.
It is worth mentioning that the first prize carried an amount of Rs 10,000, whereas second and third prizes valued at Rs 5,000 and Rs 3,000 respectively.