Hazardous conditions: Ceiling plaster injures four students, two teachers

School’s principal says he asked the education dept to fix the problem but no action was taken.

HYDERABAD:

Four students and two teachers were injured as heavy pieces of ceiling plaster fell on them in the Darya Khan Talpur Elementary School in Khandu, Matiari on Saturday.

More than a thousand students are enrolled in the school. According to the school’s principal, Talib Hassan Khaskheli, three classrooms out of the 13 in the boys section and two classrooms out of four in the girls section were already sealed when the plaster started to crumble.

“I have been writing to the Education Department’s authorities for the last three to four years to either rebuild or rehabilitate the structure. But they don’t respond,” said the principal. The District Education Officer Mehmood Qureshi said that he took charge of his office a few months ago and was not aware about the school’s condition.

The school has been sealed and the government will reconstruct the school’s building within five months, said deputy commissioner Fayyaz Abbassi who visited the school after the incident. Abbassi told The Express Tribune that he has directed the education officials to submit PC-1 for rebuilding the school in a few days so that the work could be started at the earliest.

One of the students, 12-year-old Maya, suffered a thumb fracture while two boys suffered injuries to their head. Haji Talib, a local councilor and parent of a student enrolled at the school, lamented that their repeated complaints to the education officials about the dilapidated condition of the school remained unheard. “There are dozens of other such schools in Matiari where urgent rehabilitation works are required but the officials always wait for a catastrophe to happen before they gear into action,” he remarked.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 8^th, 2013.