FORMER City Nazim of Karachi, Naimatullah Khan has pledged that Al Khidmat Foundation, the NGO, for which he works, will open one-room schools in Thar. I appreciate his gesture and agree that education in Thar needs to be improved.

According to Tharparkar district education department, there are 3,113 boys’ primary schools, 602 girls’ primary schools, 231 middle schools for boys and 13 for girls. There are 42 high schools for boys and 7 high schools for girls. The education department has 7,782 employees while 151 posts are lying vacant.

I would like to share my experience of working with Aware, an NGO working in Tharparkar to improve and modernise education. Contrary to the public’s perception, the infrastructure and manpower in government schools is more than enough for Thar’s schoolchildren.

It is our experience that influential people of the district have persuaded the government to set up an ample number of schools. What, however, is wanting is the judicious use of funds and the streamlining of institutions.

I would like to highlight one instance. We took up a case wherein government files showed that 62 schools were shown functional in a single village with a population of 4,500! We wrote to the education department and provincial authorities, and after a lot of hard work, these 62 schools were merged into a more manageable number. Thus a considerable sum of money will be saved yearly.

We have also trained government school teachers and formed and trained village education committees. With the support of philanthropists and Action Aid, Aware has also set up Child Learning Resource Centers and provided solar electricity. This has helped improve the schools’ environment. Any Pakistani is welcome to visit the 10 schools that have been provided these facilities.

Jan Muhammad Samoo

Chachro, Tharparkar

Published in Dawn, August 21st, 2015

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