Daily Times

PESHAWAR: The Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) has claimed to have set up lavatories in over 10,000 government school across the province.

According to a report of the KP Elementary and Secondary Education Department, available with Daily Times the department has constructed 10000 lavatories by spending around Rs. 7 billion in the past three years. The report stated that in June 2013, around 16,300 schools did not have toilets.

However, since the inception of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) the number of government schools without lavatories was reduced to around 7,000. The data of the Independent Monitoring Unit (IMU) shows that, 21 per cent of the schools in Abbottabad had no toilets, while 18 per cent in Upper Dir, 23 per cent in Haripur, 85 per cent in Kohistan, 22 per cent in Mansehra, 31 per cent in Battagram, Five per cent in Buner, 21 per cent in Chitral, 21 per cent in Shangla, six per cent in Lower Dir, four per cent in Malakand, 16 per cent in Swabi and 10 percent of the schools in Swat also lacked the facility.

However, the All Primary Teachers Association (APTA) Peshawar President Azizullah Khan rejected the claim of the government.

He said spending on the constriction of the lavatory system in the government school was a false claim of the present government.

Speaking to Daily Times he said that he was unaware of such a development from the government and said that that they had not seen any newly-constructed toilets in the schools of Peshawar district. He added that the number of boys and girls primary schools was around 1,200 in Peshawar, but there had not been a single toilet constructed there so far.

In some schools, he added, there were just one or two toilets for hundreds of students and some of these facilities were lying dysfunctional. Azizullah said Peshawar district required a fresh construction of the new toilets for the students for years but no action had been taken in this regard.

He said that the government needed to focus on the pragmatic steps instead of paper works and reports.

When asked, a teacher in Mardan, Sulaman Shah, also said that none of the construction was carried out for the purpose of the lavatory system.

He said various schools in the area of education minister needed a proper construction but he was unaware of it.