KARACHI, Nov 6: The classrooms at GBPS T Area Korangi No. 2, where teachers wield canes, are without furniture and facilities needed for teaching.

Students told Dawn that as they sat on the floor, screaming their lessons at the top of their voices, their teachers brandished sticks. They added that their teachers reposed their trust in the age-old adage: spare the rod and spoil the child.

However, they said, a rod-wielding teacher was better than no teacher at all. “Sometimes we spend hours on end twiddling our thumbs,” they said. The school had only four teachers, they added.

The area outside the school building is strewn with wild shrub which has grown because of the presence of the sewage. ”Every morning the stench of the sewage greets us,” a student said.

According to a form of the Sindh Education Management Information System, the school has no electricity, no toilets, no drinking water, no laboratory and no library. It has no chairs either.

A senior teacher said that because the school had no electricity connection, the school was closed when the mercury shot up. “Recently when the temperature became 42 degrees Centigrade, some students fainted. That is why, whenever the mercury goes up, we send the children home.”

She added that because of a lack of toilets, the students went home to answer the call of nature.