Pakistan: Not enough tents for schools in quake-hit areas

PESHAWAR, Dec 11: Because of shortage of funds, the education department is finding it difficult to buy school furniture and textbooks in the five quake-hit districts of the province, according to officials. The provincial government has reopened schools in the districts of Mansehra, Abbottabad, Shangla, Kohistan and Batagram, where a large number of government schools were destroyed or damaged in the Oct 8 earthquake, said Mr Shafiullah, the special education secretary.
According to him, the provincial education authorities are still unable to provide enough tents for opening tent schools in these districts and alternate arrangements like schools in the open or in rented buildings have been made.

The education department is facing difficulty accessing schools in high mountains, therefore, retrieval of school record is another problem.

Complicated procedures were hampering the setting up of tent schools, Mr Shafiullah said.

He said that a survey of government schools in the five districts was jointly conducted by Unesco, Unicef and the GTZ, a German-based technical agency.

According to the survey, buildings of 5,443 schools collapsed in the quake and only 15 per cent government schools remained unharmed in the disaster.

Some 3,210 students and 82 teachers died or received injuries in the disaster. "The number of dead can rise as debris has not been cleared from some school and data of the students admitted to hospitals is not available," the official said.

Initially, some 12,497 tents were required for setting up tent schools in the five districts but education department could set up only 304 tent schools due to shortage of tents.

"Just two days ago, we received 108 more tents and still need more tents," Mr Shafiullah said.

Talking about the extent of damage to the schools, he said that there were 6,619 schools in the five districts before the quake which damaged 26 per cent of the primary schools, 21 per cent of the high schools and 18 per cent of the higher secondary schools.

Some 56,5347 students which make 18 per cent of the enrolment in the NWFP schools had been affected by the disaster, Mr Shafiullah said.

"We need help of donors to reopen the school, normalise the traumatised teachers and students and bring them back to schools, he said.