KOHAT: Buildings of scores of girls’ schools in the district are in dilapidated condition posing danger to the students and teachers, according to sources.

They said that there were only three field officers for 387 institutions in the district most of which had not been visited for a decade.

The condition of Fateh Khankhel girls middle school has become extremely dangerous after widening of cracks in its boundary wall.

Education officer says she will ask C&W dept to send engineers for survey

Same is the condition of girls primary school, Jarma, which was inaugurated last year by former law minister Imtiaz Shahid Qureshi. It was constructed with a cost of Rs10.3 million and despite complaints by the local elders about use of substandard material in its construction no action was taken.

The cracks in the wall of Fateh Khankhel school had appeared three years ago, but no action was taken in this case too despite raising of the issue by local people.

Now the wall has tilted towards inside the school and has become imminent threat to the students.

When contacted on Saturday on phone, district executive education officer (female) Farzana Liaquat said that she had also seen images of the school buildings in bad shape on Facebook on Friday and sent assistant district officer (planning and development), Mr. Rauf, there. However, he did not report anything serious. She admitted that he was not a technical hand.

Answering a question, she explained that due to immense shortage of field staff the condition of schools located far away from the city could not be monitored. She said that under ideal situation one field officer was necessary for 30 to 35 schools.

Farzana Liaquat said that she would ask the communication and works department to send some engineers to the schools on Monday to make PC-1 so that required budget could be approved. She lamented that they had constituted parent-teacher councils for such issues, but majority of mothers were illiterate and teachers also were not as much capable to report to the department.

AWARENESS WALK: Wetlands are depleting by one per cent annually, which has been resulting in climatic changes. All this is also affecting the landing of Siberian birds in Kohat division.

This was stated by divisional forest officer Samad Khan Wazir and sub-divisional officer, Kohat district, Munsif Ali while addressing schoolchildren after an awareness walk held at Tanda Dam Lake. They said that wetlands absorbed more carbon compared to forests and as such their protection and existence was very essential for humans and wildlife survival.

They said that the migration of birds had come down from 200 species to about 40 who had diverted their stops to Iran and Central Asia.

Published in Dawn, February 4th, 2019