SHANGLA, Oct 8: Six years after the devastating earthquake flattened most of the infrastructure facilities in Shangla district on Oct 8, 2005 only 30 of the 202 destroyed school buildings here could be rebuilt so far while around 15,000 students are still without educational facilities.

When contacted, Executive District Officer (education) Abdullah told Dawn that the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (Erra) had miserably failed to reconstruct the destroyed schools in Shangla district.

He said that 185 schools were damaged extensively and 17 others partiality in the quake tragedy. He said that the Erra had so far handed over 30 schools to the education department after their construction. He said work on 82 schools was yet to be started while projects for 18 schools buildings were in the tendering stage.

Mr Abdullah said that the delay in the reconstruction work had put at stake the future of 15,000 students, most of them from poor families. The EDO said that 50 per cent of the students had stopped going to schools and some of the middle class families were sending their children to private institutions. However, rest of students were shifted to rented houses or admitted to other schools in far flung areas, he added. Teachers in various destroyed schools told this correspondent that they had no other option but to teach the students under the open sky. They regretted that six years after the tragedy the children were still sitting on the rubble of the destroyed buildings.

On way to Bisham from Shangla this scribe visited a school building near the road in Karora area and saw that two teachers were sitting under a tree in the ruined building. When asked about the situation, the teachers said it was government high school, Karora, which was destroyed in the 2005 earthquake and since then nobody had come here to see the condition of the school. The students were sitting on the ground in the open.

The teachers said that the school building was partially damaged and could have been put to use, but the Erra declared the building dangerous for living and destroyed it in 2010. They said they had objected to the Erra action and even wrote letters to the DCO and EDO Shangla for intervention, but in vain.

Iftikhar Khan, principal of the school, said that there was no shelter and in case of rain students did not come to school.