Fata MNAs plead with govt to eliminate ghost schools

Say public schools turning into animal farms due to state failure

ISLAMABAD: Lawmakers belonging to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) have pleaded with the government to eliminate ghost schools from the tribal areas where, according to them, public schools are fast shrinking with some even turning into animal farms due to state failure.

“We beg of you... for God’s sake please give some attention to schools in Fata where I am ashamed to be called an elected representative,” said Qaiser Jamal, a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) MNA elected from NA-47, Tribal Areas and Frontier Region Kohat, during a parliamentary committee meeting on Wednesday.



The National Assembly Sub-committee on States and Frontier Regions (Safron) met under the chairmanship of Sahibzada Tariqullah to discuss ‘illegal’ appointment of 159 secondary schoolteachers in the Fata education department.

MNA Jamal pleaded with the senior officials of the Fata secretariat and Federal Secretary for Safron Arshad Mirza to take steps to improve education standard in Fata.

Seconding the views, Nasir Khan, MNA from NA-46, Tribal Areas IX, said, “There are many ghost schools in my area in Bara where there are no teachers.” He added that teachers never showed up, but they drew salaries while sitting at home and even got retirement.

Jamal chipped in saying that at least 35 schools had been closed down in last few years as against a boom of private schools in the area.



“I know one school where animals graze, but a staffer there gets Rs6,000 for marking in the teachers’ attendance register,” he lamented, requesting Fata Planning and Development Secretary Yousaf Rahim “to do something before it is too late”.

Khan said nobody was interested in improving the lives of Fata residents and only doing politics. “Nobody cares... those sitting in power corridors are not concerned,” he said.

Committee chairperson Tariqullah suggested to Rahim, the Fata secretary, to adopt a check-and-balance system in line with the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government policy.

“Now in my far-off constituency, teachers not only come to schools, they come in time too... and there has been a marked improvement in absenteeism culture, and school enrolment has also been increased,” he said, suggesting the Independent Monitoring Unit (IMU) technique to improve education in Fata.

Rahim replied that they were already working on the IMU plan and a private funding of Rs84 million had been arranged for one year, with the governor also having given a go-ahead for the project.



“We have even purchased 125 monitors and central processing units, and through this project education, health and livestock will be monitored,” he said.

The lawmakers also requested Safron Secretary Mirza to assist the Fata secretariat in handling the education sector in tribal areas. “I will try my best to assist the Fata secretariat,” he said.

Later, Mirza told The Express Tribune that the issue of ghost schools was quite complex. He said there were about 6,000 schools in seven tribal regions of Fata, but the war on terror and migration had created lots of troubles for the education sector.

“It will spare time to ascertain the exact picture but it is not as bad as being portrayed,” he said.