OKARA: The district administration says there is a plan to merge the Government Girls Primary School, 14/1R with a boys’ school in the village.

The district coordination officer claims in a statement that he ordered a site visit of the girls’ school following publication of a news about it in this paper on Oct 29 and the report reveals that the building has been abandoned. The report says the school may be merged with the one for boys as the building is not in condition of repairs and its material after demolition could be used in the construction of boundary wall, additional rooms and washrooms.

The DCO says it was one of the buildings constructed as part of Tameer-i-Wattan programme in 1985-86 and no Schedule of New Expenditure (SNE) for the school was issued and no staff was appointed. “This school is not

functional according to the data of the Planning Management Information Unit (PMIU) and no Education Management Information System (EMIS) code is allotted. The building has no legal existence in the record of the district education department and 85 girls study in the boys’ portion of the school.”

On the request of local community, he said, a temporary transfer order of Ms Shagufta Bibi was issued in March 2013 and the girls were studying. The school building was dangerous so the teacher and students were shifted to the boy’s school on the order of the district education officer.

Published in Dawn, November 3rd, 2014