KASUR, Feb 6: The Government Practicing Elementary School represents many others like it in Kasur district where a lot of things need to be set right. The middle school, where the administration and teachers are working according to their own rules, is situated near Kot Azam Khan.

A few weeks ago, the school administration assigned the work of labourers to about a dozen students and a school peon when work on latrines and the sewerage system was in progress.

The construction work continued for a week and the students engaged in the work missed all their lectures, some students told this correspondent.

It’s learnt that Headmaster Muhammad Tahir, also an office-bearer of the teachers’ union, made thousands of rupees by employing students as labourers. Although he hired just one mason for the construction work, he showed in the papers that the entire work was done by “masons and labourers”.

A student says two students are deployed as gatekeeper everyday and the practice has been going on for the last many years. The gardener also works as a mason and carpenter.

Embezzlement of funds is an open secret here. Two old trees were cut from the school ground and two gates were removed during renovation work, but there is no clue to these, says a source. Six computers, donated to the school by a non-government organisation for students a year ago, are absent from the computer lab.

The school administration is illegally charging paper fund from students. Parents of some students say their children are not getting their stipend.

Students complain that most schoolteachers are associated with the Allama Iqbal Open University and they spend most of their time on the university assignments.

Some ‘blue-eyed’ teachers can leave the school any time. A teacher, who is a close relative of DO (colleges), has no time for student because he always has something ‘important’ to do at home.

Most classrooms have no furniture and the mats bought from the school fund at various times have gone missing. As a result, students have to sit on the floor or bring something with them from home to sit. Bathrooms are in a miserable condition and the students have to drink water from the taps installed close to the latrines.

The school administration allowed a police post inside the school and gave some rooms for this purpose. As a result, students had a ‘chance’ to see police torturing and abusing criminals in the open. This practice continued for three months July to September.

On students working as labourers, Headmaster Muhammad Tahir says this hard work would help them succeed in future. On the computers issue, he said four of the six machines were out of order and had been sent for repair.

About students’ stipend, he said the amount reserved for some students who were dropped from the school in 2005 and 2006 was returned to Zakat and Usher Committee.