MANSEHRA: The girls and boys students in Bela Sacha area of Balakot are without education facilities as four schools, which were destroyed in October 8, 2005 earthquake, could not be reconstructed after nine years of the tragedy.

“Would you believe that one of the four schools is running in a cattle pen and another in a one-room shelter and two are not functioning at all. Staff and teachers are receiving salaries without performing duty,” said Imtiaz Shah, a local resident, while speaking to media men here.

He accused the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (Erra) and the provincial education department of criminal negligence in reconstructing the schools located in Hungrai union council of Balakot, forcing girls to quit education.

“A girls primary school is now a ghost school as there is no building and all students have left the school,” he said, adding that teachers and staff were still receiving their salaries.

Mr Shah, who is also PTI’s Hungrai union council president, said that same was the case with the boys’ primary schools.

He said that a boys’ middle school was being run in a small prefabricated shelter without any desks and benches, adding that a girls’ middle school was running in a cattle pen and the education department was paying its monthly rent.

Fida Shah, another local resident, told reporters that PTI MPA Nargis Bibi had visited these schools recently and assured the local community that she would raise the issue on the floor of the provincial assembly, but to no effect.

Mr Shah said that local people had taken up the issue with the education department and Erra officials, but no step was taken in that regard.

He said that before the destruction of girls’ primary school in 2005 there were almost 100 girls enrolled in the school, but all of them had left the education.

He said that previous Awami National Party-led provincial government had done nothing for provision of education to children in far off areas. —Correspondent