For the lesser: Where dreams are wasted on water and washrooms
Students at govt school without furniture, water, sanitation; EDO says things will improve soon.
Students of a junior class await furniture. The state of many other schools in the district is no different. PHOTO: KASHIF ABBASI
RAWALPINDI:
When an English teacher asked 10-year old Maila to write an essay on the topic of “My school”, she could not go beyond a couple of simple sentences which ran, “This is my school. I love my school.”
She then started scratching her head for there was literally nothing except for some threadbare mats or the brick and mortar structure that she could write about.
Essential furniture, drinking water, and toilets to ensure minimum level of dignity for students are unheard of at the Government Girls Primary School Dhoke Rahim Baksh in Rawalpindi, where Maila studies in the first grade.
But she was confident and told her friends, “One day my school will have benches, and then I’ll tell you.”
Some three hundred girls study at the three-room school, set up in 1960. Most of them are from underprivileged families living in the vicinity. Nadia, a classmate of Maila’s, said, “When it rains, we don’t want to sit on the cold floor but we must because our teacher says so.”
“When the light goes out, our school turns into a dark house and younger students start crying,” said a teacher who wished not to be named. She feared that government, instead of providing facilities, will take action against her for sharing students’ concerns with the media.
Apart from the lack of furniture, the school does not even have its own building and it is being run in a privately owned structure, despite being the only government-run school for girls in the area.
Teachers of the school said that they have taken up the issue with the Education executive district officer (EDO) several times, but to no avail.
Interestingly, the situation of the nearby Millat Islamia Government Primary School for Boys was not very different.
When asked why both schools were deprived of basic necessities, a teacher at the girls’ school blamed local politicians. They said that many politicians and their kith and kin were running private schools and such conditions at government schools served their financial interests.
Education EDO Qazi Zahoorul Haq confirmed that many school did not have furniture and other facilities. He, however, said that funds have already been allocated and schools would be provided with furniture in the next few months.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 15th, 2014.
When an English teacher asked 10-year old Maila to write an essay on the topic of “My school”, she could not go beyond a couple of simple sentences which ran, “This is my school. I love my school.”
She then started scratching her head for there was literally nothing except for some threadbare mats or the brick and mortar structure that she could write about.
Essential furniture, drinking water, and toilets to ensure minimum level of dignity for students are unheard of at the Government Girls Primary School Dhoke Rahim Baksh in Rawalpindi, where Maila studies in the first grade.
But she was confident and told her friends, “One day my school will have benches, and then I’ll tell you.”
Some three hundred girls study at the three-room school, set up in 1960. Most of them are from underprivileged families living in the vicinity. Nadia, a classmate of Maila’s, said, “When it rains, we don’t want to sit on the cold floor but we must because our teacher says so.”
“When the light goes out, our school turns into a dark house and younger students start crying,” said a teacher who wished not to be named. She feared that government, instead of providing facilities, will take action against her for sharing students’ concerns with the media.
Apart from the lack of furniture, the school does not even have its own building and it is being run in a privately owned structure, despite being the only government-run school for girls in the area.
Teachers of the school said that they have taken up the issue with the Education executive district officer (EDO) several times, but to no avail.
Interestingly, the situation of the nearby Millat Islamia Government Primary School for Boys was not very different.
When asked why both schools were deprived of basic necessities, a teacher at the girls’ school blamed local politicians. They said that many politicians and their kith and kin were running private schools and such conditions at government schools served their financial interests.
Education EDO Qazi Zahoorul Haq confirmed that many school did not have furniture and other facilities. He, however, said that funds have already been allocated and schools would be provided with furniture in the next few months.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 15th, 2014.