Delayed justice?: Apex court orders investigation into 'ghost' schools

The chief justice takes up a petition on ghost schools filed by a Sindh based charity almost a year ago.

PHOTO: FILE

ISLAMABAD:
Pakistan's top judge on Monday ordered a nationwide investigation of hundreds of "ghost" schools where teachers do nothing but draw salaries and buildings are occupied by animals.

"There are animals kept in schools and the buildings have been turned into stables. This is what we are doing to our children when education is a constitutional right," Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry said as he took up a petition from a year ago on the matter.

Nearly half of all primary school age children and nearly three quarters of young girls are not enrolled in primary school in Pakistan, according to a UN and government report published in December.

Education is a major challenge in Pakistan, where the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) says public spending on education is less than 2.5 per cent of the GDP. Only nine countries in the world spend less on education.

In a surprising move, the chief justice on Monday took up a petition dating from a year back filed by a charity in Sindh asking the Supreme Court to investigate fake schools, most of them in rural districts.


He ordered district judges across Pakistan to survey fake schools and submit a report by March 18.

"The government has failed to provide any answer or details about the state of ghost and non-functional schools, while apparently funds and salaries were being disbursed as buildings remain abandoned or occupied by animals," he said.

"This is not the court's job to micro mange things, but we have to enforce fundamental rights enshrined in the constitution," Chaudhry added.

Rehmatullah, the coordinator of charity Sindh Rural Development Society who brought the petition, said 60,000 children alone are not going to school in the rural Sindh district of Matiari.

He showed the judges photos and newspaper reports about a school being used as a police station in the village of Jati.
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