MINGORA: The students and their parents in Kandak village of Barikot tehsil have said that they are tired of continuous relocation of their school as the lone primary school in the area does not have its own building since its establishment in 1969.

Kandak village is located in a far flung area of Barikot where a primary school was established in 1969. However, during the previous 50 years, the provincial government failed to construct building for the school.

The local residents said that the school was being changed from one place to another owing to issue of the rent of the building.

“Since the school has not its own building, we find a vacant house in the village and hire it on rent it for the school. This year we relocate the school to four different buildings,” Noor Mohammad, a resident of Kandak, told Dawn.

He said that sometimes if a rented building was not available in the area, the students attended classes in a village mosque or hujra. The parents of the students pay the rent of the school building.

Due to absence of school building, more than 150 students face multiple issues. The students complained that they had no facility inside the rented building.

“We do not have water and toilet facilities in our school for which we have to go out. Due to absence of all these facilities, we face many problems,” Nazma and Aneesa, two fourth graders, told Dawn.

The students said that they didn’t have chairs and playground facilities. “We don’t have electricity in our school. We sit on ground due to which our clothes get dirty,” said Saqib Khan, a second grader.

The local people said that majority of the villagers were poor and had no land. They said that government owned a vast piece of land in the village where the school, playground and graveyard could be set up.

The schoolteachers said that they performed duty regularly. “The education department provided us Rs730,000 for the construction of toilets, pit well, boundary wall and solar system but we could not spend the money as the school does not own land and building,” Afzal Shah a teacher told Dawn. He added that the money was sent back to the education department.

MPA Dr Amjad Khan, when contacted, said that in the next budget he would acquire land for the school and would construct building on it.

Published in Dawn, November 12th, 2019