KARACHI, March 25: The S. M. Lyari School, Lyari’s oldest secondary school and once regarded as an ideal educational institution, has lost its glory gradually after being taken over by the Education Department. At present, it is imparting virtually no education because of lack of all the essential facilities, even furniture, to accommodate its students.

Situated in Chawkiwara, the school has a minimum possible staff who have been striving hard to convince the students and their parents that learning needed no chairs, desks or a particular atmosphere/environment. Their effort is aimed at preventing the students from getting discouraged by the Education Department’s indifferent attitude and the government’s unjustifiable shortcomings in this regard.

Social workers, however, are not ready to accept the lame excuses being presented by the officials. They have constantly been running from pillar to post to gain sympathies of at least a few kind-hearted officials for the cause of educating Lyariites who are lagging behind in all the fields only due to, what an NGO described as, “the step-motherly treatment meted out to these people by successive governments.”

The S. M. Lyari School had proved its education as the best in the vast Lyari jurisdiction till the times it had been functioning under the Sindh Madressah Board. Soon after its takeover by the Education Department, the school started facing a decline in its education standard as well as physical condition.

In their continuous efforts, the local activists approached the Nazim of Lyari expecting that the devolution of powers to the grass-roots level now might help them restore the glory of the once marvellous institution. However, their high expectations proved illusion when they received a cool response from the Nazim.

It is not the case that the concerned officials are unaware of the conditions at the school. Recently, the District Education Officer of the City Government, visited the premises and was astonished to see that the students were made to sit on the floor of classrooms. He was made to believe that the parents were still keen to send their children to the school though they knew that in what kind of environment the students were getting education there.

The EDO felt a jerk when he remembered that a requisition of a paltry amount of Rs150,000 was forwarded to him for approval and the requisition pertained to the procurement of desks and other essential furniture for these eager students. The Nazim of Lyari Town, in a communication to the City Government on Feb 15, had recommended to the DEO that the case be processed expeditiously.

Meanwhile, Abdul Razzaq, a local activist working with an NGO, has pointed out that the school had no headmaster and that the affairs were being looked after by an adhoc incharge.