Of crumbling schools and ghost teachers

Buildings without basic facilities have become garbage dumps and hangouts of drug addicts

KARACHI:

Due to the negligence of Sindh Education Department, government schools in Manghopir area of Karachi are in dilapidated condition. School buildings without furniture and basic facilities have become garbage dumps and hotbed for drug addicts and criminal elements. Government Boys Primary School Sindhi Medium and Government Girls Primary School Urdu Medium Garm Chashma are counted among the historical schools of Karachi.

At one time in these schools, PTV Sindhi and wellknown actor of Urdu dramas (late) Noor Muhammad Lashari was the headmaster of these schools. Thousands of children were educated at these schools but today the state of this institution is telling stories of incompetence and negligence of the officers and departments concerned. There are less students, more teachers in these schools built in the same boundary wall.

Teachers mostly do not attend the schools, which are completely deprived of water, electricity and other basic amenities. Meanwhile, there is only one teacher for 137 children in Government Boys Primary School Haji Mehmood Goth in Sarmastani Mohalla. Despite the biometric system, the rest of the teachers have been receiving their salaries at home for the last two years. The watchman and other staff are missing.

The two-room school has no facilities. Similarly, Government Boys Primary School Banaras (A) Pakhtunabad has been deprived of educational activities, teachers and other staff since its construction in 2002. After 19 years, the school is in shambles. The boundary walls of the school have collapsed. Here too, the education officers have kept the local children of Pakhtunabad away from education, maintaining the tradition of shifting the school to the Manghopir extension campus.

Government Boys Primary School, Makrani Para, on which a plaque of Mullah Jan Muhammad Goth is put, has been in a state of disrepair for many years. The school doors, windows, cupboards and other furniture are missing. The boundary wall has collapsed. Under this situation, parents have stopped sending their children to school.

Government Boys Primary School Yaqub Shah Basti is also in shambles. There are about 140 children enrolled in this school but only one teacher is available to teach such a large number of students. Amazingly, in this two-room school five classes are held by just one teacher, simultaneously.

The school was rented by a political worker for five years. Residents of the area have demanded of the Sindh chief minister, provincial education minister and education secretary to investigate irregularities and misappropriation of SMC funds received for development works and maintenance while dismissing the ghost teachers from service.