Daily Times

KARACHI: The provincial authorities have informed the Sindh High Court on Friday that a proposal regarding erecting boundary walls around 81 primary and secondary schools, identified as sensitive, across the province had been approved.

A division bench headed by Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah was hearing the petition filed by the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education Research (Piler) and others seeking directions for the government to provide foolproof security to the educational institutions in the province.

The provincial law officer filed a report, submitting that a summary to provide the funds for erecting boundary walls around the schools is already been sent to Sindh chief secretary and the work on the project would start immediately after the release of the funds.

The report said that a separate scheme titled, “Construction/Repair/Raising Compound Walls of Colleges in Sindh (Security-threatened colleges)” within the estimated cost of Rs40 million was in pipeline covering 16 colleges.

It added that information regarding construction of boundary walls around 1,877 educations institutions within the estimated cost of Rs3,535 million had been received from field officers of the Education and Literacy Department.

A summary was also being moved to the chief minister for arranging the funds for construction and repair of proposed boundary walls around the educational institutions.

Earlier, the court was informed that as many as 81 schools were declared sensitive and steps were being taken to erect boundary walls around them.

The petitioners submitted that as per reports published in the media, welfare schools run by communities in Karachi were at high risk. They added that some private institutions and schools had also complained of receiving threats.

According to them, Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the Islamabad Capital Territory had formulated standard operating procedure (SOP’s) directing the school administrations to adopt measures, including raising boundary walls topped with razor wire, and installing closed-circuit television cameras.

However, they said, nothing has been done to promulgate such SOP’s in the province, in a situation where the authorities had placed the responsibility for educational institutions’ protection either on the school managements or on parents.

The petitioners asked the court to direct the government to provide foolproof security to the educational institutions in the province.