Officials raid illegally-run school

School lacks enough infrastructure despite receiving Rs550 per child from PEF


Kashif Zafar January 23, 2018
PHOTO: EXPRESS

BAHAWALPUR: After conducting a raid at the Abeera Educational Complex, the Hasilpur assistant commissioner finds that the administration has been illegally operating at the school. The school had been given approval to conduct classes up to the fifth grade, but it has enrolling students up to seventh grade.

Around 300 students of the Abeera Educational Complex sit on the floor as the school lacks enough furniture, rooms and a boundary wall. The school is located in Basti Chohan in between sugarcane crops and is being run with the help of the Punjab Education Foundation.

The school has a total strength of more than 300 female students for whom there exists only two small rooms along with charpoys, mattresses and trunks. There are eight teachers in total for these students who are not well qualified and are working on a minimal salary of two to three thousand rupees.

However, the school administration and the owners of the school receive Rs550 for each child every month from the Punjab Education Foundation.

Moreover, the school is surrounded by sugarcane crops from all sides without any boundary wall, putting the lives of young students in danger.

School Principal Qamar Zaman said that he does not have funds just yet and will start the construction of the school by a taking loan from a bank. “Payments received from the chief administration are only enough to meet the running expenses,” he adds.

On the other hand, locals demand that strict action be taken against people who are playing with the future of innocent children.

After accessing the situation, the assistant commissioner says that the principal should have been to jail rather than a school. His team has confiscated the records of the school.

He says that he will write to the Education Department to take action against the administration and recommends the cancelation of school’s registration until the full building is not constructed.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 23rd, 2018.

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