LARKANA: Sindh Minister for Education Syed Sardar Ali Shah has said that though rehabilitation of 50 per cent of all schools damaged by massive floods in 2022 was a gigantic task the government has undertaken it with the help of federal government.

The minister told journalists after presiding over a pre-budget meeting to seek proposals from MNAs, MPAs, representatives of local bodies and stakeholders here on Wednesday that the floods caused widespread damage to schools, government infrastructure and houses.

Flanked by MNA Khursheed Junejo, who is also president of PPP Larkana district, and Aijaz Leghari, general secretary and chairman district council, the minister said that 50 per cent schools of the province, which came to 20,000, were damaged completely or partially while 2.1 million houses were devastated and caved in during the unprecedented rains and flood.

It required massive funds to reconstruct and rehabilitate the schools but Sindh government had not had such a huge amount and despite allocating 10 years of entire development budget it would take five to 10 years to complete, he added.

He hoped work on rebuilding of 7,000 damaged schools would be complete and even after such hectic activity some 13,000 schools would still have to be left unattended.

He said the federal government had only released Rs1 billion this year after a pause of two years from its committed share of Rs5 billion and the rehabilitation work of schools had been started.

Even after this, the rehabilitation of damaged schools remained a serious challenge. In the light of four to five back to back meetings regarding education reforms with Sindh chief minister, proposals were framed to decentralise the issues of sanitation, furniture, construction of lavatories, appointment of local watchmen and minor repairs at schools, he said.

He said the proposals were now with the department of finance to vet. Directors and superintendent engineers were sitting in every district to supervise ongoing procurement of furniture, he said and pointed out last year’s anomalies in the process of distribution as the furniture was sent to ‘closed’ and non-functional schools instead of the functioning schools.

Subsequently, in the aftermath of inquiries certain directors were removed and from now on MNAs, MPAs, party leaders and stakeholders would keep an eye to ensure transparency of the process, he said.

Admitting to the shortage of teachers, the minister said in line with School Teacher Ratio (STR) policy, teachers would be recruited by June and appreciated the pro-education status of Dokri town (near Mohenjo Daro).

He said that an exhaustive meeting with all stakeholders was held and he might make a follow-up meeting so that the remaining problems could be sorted out. The recruitment process was halted due to stay by courts, caretaker setup and general elections but the Sindh government had now restarted the recruitment, he said.

Earlier, the minister presided over a meeting which MNA Khursheed Junejo, MPA Jamil Soomro, political secretary to Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari; MPA Suhail Anwar Siyal, Buland Khan Junejo, spokesman for Sindh government; Khair Muhammed Shaikh, special assistant to Sindh chief minister, secretary education Zahid Abbasi and officers of different government department briefed the minister at the meeting.

Published in Dawn, May 15th, 2025