KCR plans leave one school in tatters

The decades-old building of SITE Model School is in ruins with no boundary wall, leaving students and teachers unsafe.

A part - around 40 per cent - of this girls school was razed during the anti-encroachment drive conducted to clear the path for Karachi Circular Railway and the debris continues to lie there as vestiges of the better past.

With no walls along its periphery and nearly half of the building demolished, most classes are now being conducted in the school's ground, under the open sky and sans proper furniture.

The yet to be lifted debris, on the other hand, has attracted several drug addicts, besides being home to stray dogs.

Moreover, a vocational training centre was earlier set up on the school's premises with the assistance of a private partner. However, in the absence of a boundary wall, all equipment from the centre was stolen during the lockdown, when the school remained closed for a long period. The vocational training centre now lies idle.

Consequently, most parents are no longer willing let their daughters attend school.

The teaching staff fears that the facility will soon shut down if its building was not reconstructed at the earliest as in the absence of a boundary wall, it was not just students whose safety was at risk, but also of teachers.

They claimed the debris that collected after the building’s partial demolition could not be removed due to the lack of funds and urged the Sindh government to build a wall and clear the rubble so that students could study in peace.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 16^th, 2020.