PESHAWAR: The Directorate of Education for seven tribal districts has rehabilitated essential infrastructure of 543 schools in five of the districts with the financial assistance of foreign donor agencies, officials said.

Damaged infrastructure of schools has been rehabilitated in the militancy-affected districts of Khyber, Kurram, Orakzai, North Waziristan and South Waziristan where militants had bombed around 1,500 educational institutions.

An official said that the USAID, European Union and UNDP had funded the infrastructure rehabilitation schemes in these areas.

He said that of 543 schools, 280 schools were rehabilitated through Taleemi Islahi Jirgas (TIJs) and on average Rs1 million was transferred to a TIJ for the completion of civil work. Furthermore, 53 prefabricated school buildings have also been constructed, he said.

On the pattern of parent-teacher councils in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the directorate has established TIJs in erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) to engage local communities in the process.

The official said that total 131,322 girl students (37 per cent) were directly benefited from the UNDP interventions in these five districts. He said that furniture was provided in addition to learning materials and teaching kits to 326 rehabilitated schools.

He said that local communities were involved in school management through formation and training of 761 members (192 women and 569 men) of TIJs.

He said that the directorate also imparted training to 5,591 members (1,330 women and 4,261 men) of TIJs on their responsibilities, monitoring, community mobilisation and school development to improve access to education.

He added that through close coordination of the directorate the rehabilitation work was continued on 80 partially-damaged school buildings in South Waziristan and Kurram, while the UNDP would build 50 prefabricated classrooms in 25 extensively damaged schools.

Published in Dawn, September 24th, 2018