Students of gutted school study under open sky

MANSEHRA: Boys and girls from the Government Primary School Jabori, which was gutted by fire last year, continued to receive education under the open sky in extreme weather conditions.

“The five-room multi-storey building was destroyed in a fire in June last year. Despite the passage of a year and a half, the students have still been studying in miserable conditions without proper facilities,” Abdul Wahid Khan, a resident, told reporters on Friday.

A group of parents led by Wahid Khan said that the government had completed the legal formalities after the fire but had failed to begin reconstructing the school building.“We have raised this issue with senior officials in the education department and the tehsil administration of Baffa-Pakhal, but nothing has been done as yet,” he said.

Khan said that parents demanded that the reconstruction of the school building be completed during the winter vacations, which were around the corner.Another local, Zahoor Khan, said that the school which caters to the educational needs of boys and girls from Jabori and its surrounding areas had been destroyed in the devastating earthquake in 2005 and was reconstructed by a non-governmental organisation.“The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, which claims significant success in its educational reforms has not even provided basic furniture for this school,” he added.