PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government hasn’t spent a single penny for the provision of missing facilities to its schools in the province during the last two years despite over Rs2 billion allocations, officials claim.
The directorate of elementary and secondary education utilises funds for the missing facilities, including construction of boundary walls and lavatories, electrification, and water supply, through parent-teacher councils of the respective schools.
Sources in the directorate told Dawn that Rs1 billion was earmarked for missing facilities in the financial year 2021-22 and the same amount in 2022-23 but the finance department didn’t release the funds despite repeated requests by the education department.
They said the province had around 35,000 government schools but 4,528 of them didn’t have electricity, 3,289 lacked water supply, 1,648 were without lavatories, and 1,552 had no boundary walls.
Officials insist finance dept didn’t release funds despite Rs2bn allocations
The officials said though the finance department didn’t release allocated funds, many government schools had sufficient funds but couldn’t utilise them due to administrative issues.
A schoolteacher told Dawn on condition of anonymity that the installation of fans was direly needed in several classrooms of his school but that couldn’t happen due to the unavailability of funds meant for the missing facilities.
He said that the school replaced around 40 old fans from 2018 to 2020 with the help of funds provided by the government.
“We [school] need 30 more ceiling fans but don’t have money to purchase them,” he said.
The teacher also said most fans didn’t operate properly inconveniencing both teachers and students in hot and humid weather.
He said 60-70 students were enrolled for matriculation and intermediate courses and 80-90 for other classes but they couldn’t focus on lectures due to the lack of .
The teacher said the lack of funds also blocked building whitewash and minor renovation.
“Our school is located in the cantonment area. If it is in such a pitiable condition, you can well imagine things in public sector schools operating in other far-off areas of the province,” he said.
An employee of the district education office in Peshawar told Dawn that many government schools in the provincial capital lacked basic facilities to the misery of both staff members and students.
He said that electric supply to rural and semi-urban areas remained suspended for long hours, so schoolchildren and employees suffered like other residents.
The employees said that the Pesco was subjecting the people to 18-20 hours power cuts daily and those enrolled or working in educational institutions were no exception.
He called for the installation of solar panels in schools to ensure the provision of uninterrupted power supply to the students and staff members.
The official also said the public sector schools in urban areas of the provincial capital had lavatories but most of them were either choked or needed repairs, which was not possible due to the lack of funds.
A senior official of the elementary and secondary education department told Dawn that the finance department was formally requested several times in the last two years for the provision of funds to provide schools with missing facilities, but it “kept mum on it for being cash-strapped.”
Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2023
