KARACHI: The Sindh government has offered a school building to the street children studying under the bridge in front of the Abdullah Shah Ghazi shrine.

The offer was made by provincial Information Minister Nasir Shah, on behalf of Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah and Sindh Education Foundation MD Nafisa Shah, while talking to the media after the Sindh cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

The minister said the chief minister was worried about the street children receiving education on a footpath under the open sky.

“The chief minister has offered to provide lunch — through Saylani Welfare — stipend, textbooks, notebooks, uniforms, and a school building to the children studying on the footpath,” he said.

PTI decries move to dislocate ‘footpath school’ children

Meanwhile, speaking to journalists at the same footpath, PTI Sindh chapter President Dr Arif Alvi, who is also a member of the National Assembly, accused the Sindh government of spoiling education in the province.

He said the idea of setting up a school for street children was given a practical shape after the incident of the Army Public School.

“It is a good step where every student is paid Rs50 on a daily basis and now two to three hundred children have started attending the ‘classes’. They are also being provided food.”

He alleged that social workers were performing the duty which the government had failed to do but now the government was trying to dislodge the children.

“I demand from the Sindh government to arrange food for these children instead of disturbing their school.”

PTI Sindh Parliamentary Party leader Khurram Sherzaman said that although the education budget was Rs140 billion but there were no bathrooms in 40 per cent schools, no drinking water facility in 60 per cent schools and no playgrounds in 75 per cent schools.

Infas Ali Shah, who is running the ‘school’, asked the people not to give political colour to her ‘effort’.

“We will not run the ‘school’ on government’s conditions and we will not stop educating the street children,” she said.

Published in Dawn, February 1st, 2018