HARIPUR: The teaching community is sceptical about achieving the enrolment target set for academic year 2023-24 as the community schools of the Elementary and Secondary Education Foundation (ESEF) were set up in violation of the criteria in different parts of the Haripur district.

Talking to Dawn here, the teachers of government primary schools termed the community schools wastage of funds. They said such funds would have brought better results if spent on improving infrastructure and filling vacant posts of teachers in the existing schools.

“Setting up of community schools was based on flawed need assessment reports that were politically maneuvered to facilitate favourites of local politicians and officials of education department,” alleged Shahid Gohar, an office-bearer of Tanzeem-i-Asatiza Pakistan.

He said most community schools were opened in contravention of the criteria that required at least two kilometers from the existing school in a plain area and one to 1.5km in remote hilly areas. He said untrained teachers and insufficient facilities at community schools would hardly serve the purpose of educating the out-of-school children.

Qazi Abdullah, assistant sub-divisional education officer, Haripur, told Dawn that ESEF had ignored the criteria of maintaining 1.5km distance from the government schools while establishing community schools.

“The entire strength of 48 students has moved to an ESEF community school from government primary school in Theh village,” he said, adding ESEF officials didn’t bother to check the situation on the ground.

Mr Abdullah said the education department had set a target of enrolling 17,000 children in Haripur, but the way ESEF schools were being established, the target won’t be met.

ESEF assistant programme officer, Haripur, Chaudhry Nazeer confirmed 90 community schools had been functional in Haripur since 2013, while 35 new schools would be functional within next few weeks. He said the focus of the programme was to enroll children of the areas lacking easy access to education facilities.

“The concept is cost-effective, enabling the communities to avail schooling facilities for their children in less time as opposed to the time required for establishing a new school.

Published in Dawn, April 20th, 2023