LAYYAH, May 1: A locality with 12,000 population, neighbouring the Layyah city and 500 yards from the district coordinator’s house, has never been able to produce even a single matriculate till date, Dawn has learnt.

The presence of over a dozen of government and private schools and two collages has never made inroads into the content-to-be-illiterate people of Ibrahimabad.

Even though, a maktab school has been working in Ibrahimabad since 1984 but it has never been an attraction to the children. The single-room school’s enrolment is 30 and not more than 10 students attend the every day. The school has no drinking water and toilet facilities. The roof of the classroom is cracked and the school’s assets include three chairs, two tables and a black board and the staff is consisted of watchman Fiaz Hussain and teacher Zafar Iqbal.

Fifteen years ago, the government built a school under the Iqra Education Scheme there but zero enrolment forced the Education Department to hand over the school building to a private school. And the private school turned the building into its store.

The inhabitants of the shabby area are Oods, whose forefathers used to travel from place to place. Now, mostly every family has a person serving in the Middle East as masons who earn good money and send it to their families back in the country. Dawn visited the slum many a times and saw dozens of children roaming around and women whiling away times.

The third generation of the people of Ibrahimabad is growing up uneducated.

Madam Qamar Rizvi, a social worker, sees bleak future for the posterity of Ibrahimabad and blames the government for doing nothing to raise awareness among the public about the importance of education. She said the government functionaries and local council representatives never tried to peruse the people to send their children to school.

Social workers Bashir Ahmed, Wali Muhammad and Muhammad Essa demanded that the Iqra School be made functional so the student of Ibrahimabad benefit from it.

Ibrahimabad is not the only place with such miserable literacy figures in the district as unfriendly conditions for teachers and student in many areas of the district have not made schools attractive places for the children.

At places, mostly schools lack staff and other facilities while in some instances a number of teachers serve a few children in some schools.

The Anwaar Baru Maktab School is functioning with two teachers.

The Government Girls’ Primary School of Manzoorabad, the Government Girls Maktab Primary School Haiderwala and the Government Girls’ Maktab School of Manzoorabad have no electricity connection.

The Government Girl’s Middle School of Jinnah Park has over 500 students only with seven teachers. The Government Girl’s Primary School of Lohanch Nashaib has over 400 students and only two teachers to serve them.

The Government Middle School of Behmanwala and the Government Girls’ Primary School Eid Ghah have 150 enrolled students each and 14 teachers each are available at both schools.

Education Executive District Officer Hafiz Abdul Wahid Aoulakh says that the Ibrahimabad School’s building was handed over to the private school by his predecessor. He sys he will make the school functional after the lifting of ban on posting and transfer of teachers.