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Quake-damaged schools are a threat to children

By Zakir Hassnain

PESHAWAR: Cracks left in school buildings in the NWFP after the October 8 earthquake are a constant worry and a threat to children’s lives. Parents and children are concerned that a strong aftershock could bring down the cracked walls or roofs. The NWFP government has not made any effort to find alternate buildings for schools.

Most parents are reluctant to send their children to school. The Government High School No2 in Nowshera, the Begum Shahabuddin School and the Jogi Wara School in Peshawar are three examples where the earthquake has damaged the buildings. The opposition and government members of the parliament have already expressed their concern in the provincial assembly. Maulana Fazl-e-Ali, the education minister, assured the assembly that they were looking for alternative buildings. Another concern for parents is girls’ schools are being shifted far from their present locations.

A student’s father told Daily Times that his daughter’s school had shifted from near their residential area to a school 3 kilometres away. According to reports, the government is setting up a 500-tent village on the campus of

Hazara University, which was destroyed in the earthquake.

Mushtaq Ghani, parliamentary leader of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML), urged the provincial government to resume teaching at the university’s campus. “Setting up a tent village on the campus means it won’t be used for teaching for another two to three years and the students will suffer,” Ghani said. Students enrolled at the Azad Kashmir University, which collapsed in the earthquake, also need to be accommodated in universities in the NWFP.

The government also needs to provide psychological counselling for students traumatised by the earthquake and by the loss of their classmates and teachers who died in the quake.

Maulana Fazl-e-Ali said that out of 6,704 schools, 2,159 were completely destroyed. He said the earthquake destroyed 91 schools in Abbottabad, 252 schools in Kohistan, 1,100 schools in Mansehra, 517 schools in Batagram and 199 schools in Shangla. Around 1,610 schoolchildren died in the earthquake, he said. However, these are not the official figures as thousands of bodies are still buried under the debris.

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