PESHAWAR: Despite the need for establishment of more schools in densely populated urban areas of the province, the practice of shifting proposed schools from cities to rural localities continues due to high prices of land in cities, according to sources.

The urban areas need more schools to enrol out of school children and rationalise the number of students in the overcrowded schools, sources in the Elementary and Secondary Education (E&SE) Department told Dawn.

However, the education department is least interested in the purchase of land for the establishment of new schools in cities, they said. The increase in the prices of the land has also slowed down the process of elevation of schools from primary to middle and onward to high and higher secondary level, the sources said.

They said that the education department rarely purchased land for the establishment of the new schools while it mostly preferred to construct schools on donated or state land. They said that only the influential MPAs could force the chief minister to issue directives for establishment of schools and purchase of land.

When contacted, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf MPA Shaukat Yousafzai said that provision of land for the construction of new schools in the city areas was a very serious issue. “Last year, the establishment of a primary school was approved in my constituency, but that was shifted to the constituency of another MPA because of unavailability of land,” he said.

Mr Yousafzai, who is elected from the city area, said that the chief minister had approved another school for his constituency in the ongoing financial year, but he was yet to find free of cost land for the project. According to official record, establishment of 160 primary schools had been reflected in the Annual Development Plan for the current fiscal year.

The sources said that Chief Minister Pervez Khattak had issued directives on August 6, 2014 for the establishment of a primary school for boys in PK-3, the constituency of the ruling MPA Javed Naseem. However, the same school project was shifted to PK-37 Kohat on the chief minister’s directives on January 9, 2015 because land in the PK-3 was very expensive and no one among masses was ready to donate land, the sources said.

Projects continue to be shifted to rural areas where people readily donate land for schools

They said that under the ADP scheme the chief minister had issued directives on August 6, 2014 about the elevation of a primary school for boys to middle in PK-1, which could not materialise. The sources said that the upgradation project was later shifted to the PK-91 Dir on the directives of chief minister on Dec 24, 2014. They said that elevation of a primary school to the middle level required additional one kanal land, while from the middle to high two kanals should be added to the school’s area.

PTI MPA Ziaullah Khan, when contacted, told Dawn that urban areas needed construction of more schools because of rapid increase in population. Mr Khan, who is elected from PK-1, said that despite the approval, projects for construction of schools in urban areas had been shifted to other areas from time to time because of unavailability of land.

He said that he had requested the chief minister to form a special policy about the purchase of land in Peshawar city and its peripheries because no one was ready to donate land free of cost. “On my request the chief minister has established a committee to deliberate and form a policy in this regard,” he said.

When contacted, Provincial Minister for E&SE Department Mohammad Atif Khan told Dawn that the government couldn’t afford to purchase land for new schools due to financial constraints. “I have received many complaints from the MPAs that free of cost land is not available for schools in urban areas,” he said. The minister said that the government was contemplating to do proper legislation to streamline the purchase of land for establishment of new schools.

The sources said that the government schools in urban areas, particularly in big cities, were already overcrowded and no construction of the required schools had been compounding the problem.

It is hard to find someone who will donate land in Peshawar city and its peripheries where per mala land prices ranged between Rs200,000 and Rs1 million, a senior official in the district education office told Dawn.

The sources said that over 1,400 students were enrolled in the Government Primary School for Boys, Asia Gate, and 1,500 students in the Government Girls Primary School, Shahdand, Peshawar.

During a visit to several schools in congested areas of the city, this correspondent noted that about 150 students were sitting in each classroom of the primary schools. The teachers there said that the environment in such schools was not fit for education. They said that in overcrowded schools it was almost impossible to properly teach students, check their homework and control them.

Published in Dawn January 25th , 2015

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