PESHAWAR, March 14: Some 450 students of Government High School for Girls at Mitha Khel in Karak have been receiving education in a three-room dilapidated building for the last many years due to the ‘negligence’ of responsible quarters.

The three classrooms can accommodate 150 students at the most, while the rest of them have to sit in the open. The building also houses a two-room section for the primary students, which presents a sorry picture of official negligence.

Parents put the blame for the situation on the provincial education department, which had upgraded the school to middle and then to high level without expanding the building. Although a separate four-room block was constructed for the high section adjacent to the existing school, it could not be occupied for various reasons.

The situation worsens when it rains or the sun shines harshly, complained two little girls who attend their classes in the open. “However neat and clean uniform we may put on, we have to sit on the dirty floor,” the girls deplored, desperately looking for shelter to save themselves from drizzle that was continuing for some time as the veranda was already overcrowded.

The school is operating without a headmistress. Two posts of senior English teachers are also lying vacant since the school was upgraded to high level in the mid 1990s.

A teacher said there was an acute shortage of teaching staff and an even severe problem of space when the authorities sets up examination centre in the school. “We have to declare vacations and close the school to accommodate the candidates who come from other schools to take their examination here,” said a staffer.

“It will be much better for parents to train their daughters in household chores instead of sending them to the school to suffer the indifference of teachers and extremes of the climate,” said a teacher.

The building constructed for the high section is lying unoccupied with the result that the condition of walls, doors and windows has deteriorated and plaster has long come off. “We have kept the doors and windows in the existing school for fear of thieves,” said a school staffer.

The education department has not yet taken over the building, said an official of the district education office.