Primary education: ‘Less than a sixth of Faisalabad schools fully equipped’

‘Funds inadequate to provide new, and maintain available, facilities’.

FAISALABAD:

Less then a sixth of the primary schools in the district have the basic facilities approved for schools by the Education Department, Executive District Officer (Education) Sohaib Imran told The Express Tribune.

He said the department faced severe financial constraints and that it had to allocate scarce resources among the 1,276 schools in the district. He said 350 of these schools did not have a boundary wall and 95 lacked toilets.

As many as 210 schools were equipped with all facilities.
He said 70 percent of the teachers employed at these schools were graduates (BA/Bed) and the remaining were matriculates. Government Primary School for Boys in Chak 273-RB/II (Ray Chak) is among the majority that lack most basic facilities. There is a single teacher for 86 students studying at the school. Javeria Islam, who holds a master’s degree, says she walks almost 10 kilometers every morning to come and teach at the school. She says though the department had sanctioned three teachers for the school, two positions had been vacant for over a year. She says most of the villagers are reluctant to send their children to school. “They have little interest in seeing their children learn English. They want a helping hand at their fields,” she says.Besides, she says, there were no facilities at the school to attract them. She said the  school lacked a boundary wall, toilets, let alone a playground. She said the two classroom were in a dilapidated condition and no longer useful. 

Published in The Express Tribune, December 10^th, 2011.