SIALKOT, Dec 11: The Nazims of several union councils have voiced their concern over the district government’s failure to fulfil its promise of providing basic facilities at educational institutions, especially in the rural areas.

Prolonged absence of teachers, dilapidated school buildings and missing facilities over there are the major problems the local administration has time and again pledged to solve, but nothing remarkable has been done so far in this regard, the Nazims claim.

They have criticized the government, which claims to have been spending billions of rupees on schools and colleges, and demanded allocation of funds for necessary repairs and renovation of the buildings.

Giving statistics, they say, there are 735 government primary schools for boys, six of which have no buildings. Children in these schools have to sit in the open, even in extreme weathers. Around 540 schools have no electricity and 135 lack potable water, toilets and boundary walls.

Among the primary schools for girls, the Nazims say, 832 have no electricity, 353 potable water and 91 no building.

Of the 154 government girls’ elementary and middle schools, a school is without building, 23 schools are without electricity and five have no drinking water facility.

They also point out that there is no teacher for science and mathematics for 2,500 students of the Government Girls Higher Secondary School, Badiana (Pasrur tehsil), for the last decade. Besides, 26 posts of teachers of other subjects have been lying vacant for years.

A UC Nazim, Mumtaz Ahmad Bajwa, claims that his union council, which covers 22 villages, has no high school due to which the students have to travel to Chawinda for getting higher education. This costs them extra money and time.

He suggests that the Government Middle School, Phalora, should be upgraded for the benefit of the local students. The school was converted into a middle-level institute about 50 years ago, he added.

Kandan Sayyan UC Nazim Khalid Mahmood Sayyan reveals that the provincial government had planned to upgraded the local government high school to higher level in 1995, but the project was ditched for reasons best known to the authorities concerned.

He demands immediate launch of higher secondary classes for the benefit of the local girl students, besides allocation of special funds for the expansion of the school building. The Nazim of Gojra-Daska, Omar Hayat Bal, says the government girls’ primary schools at Nikka Kaila village, Thatta Laakhi and Qila Tek Singh are still without buildings and the students have to sit under the sky.

According to Arshad Javed Ghoraya, the Nazim of Bogray-Daska, there is not a single high school in his union council. He also demands uplift of the government girls’ elementary school at Seoki-Daska for the students of the area’s 25 villages. The school has a science laboratory, but no science teacher, the Nazim regrets.

Satrah UC Nazim Chaudhry Inayat Rasool complains that the Sultanpura and Dugri villages have no primary schools for girls for long and the students have to go to schools at a distance of three kilometres.

The people of these villages had donated a two-kanal tract to the education department long ago, but the latter has done nothing for the approval of a school there so far. He also described the condition of school buildings at Dugri Khurd’s villages.

When contacted, District Nazim Mian Naeem Javed said the local government was spending Rs1.3 billion for improving standard of education and facilitating the teachers and students.

He said the district government was focusing on enhancing the literacy rate and all the children from five to seven years of age had been enrolled in primary schools as part of the plan.

He alleged that the previous governments had not undertaken the required construction and renovation of educational institutions.

The government, he said, had completed 237 projects at a cost of Rs260 million for the uplift of education sector in the last two years. It had also initiated various other projects for colleges with an expenditure of Rs80 million. The projects included the construction of hostels at the government postgraduate colleges for women in Sialkot and Daska (requiring Rs40 million), he said.

The local administration had also allocated special funds for recruiting 25 per cent of the teachers in various parts of the district, he said.

Final touches were being given to the plan of setting up Allama Iqbal University for Women and The Women Cadet College here, the Nazim added.