Schools in Thar

Sir: In a recent media statement, Naimatullah Khan, former City Nazim Karachi, deplored the state of education in Thar and expressed his willingness to open one-room schools in Thar by engaging the Al-Khidmat Foundation.

While appreciating the spirit of philanthropy and his concern for the education of Thari children, I would like to request him to pay attention to improving the existing government educational institutions instead of opening new ones. There are 3,113 boys, 602 girls primary schools, 42 high schools, seven separate high schools for girls, 231 middle schools for boys and 13 schools for girls. According to the district education department, there are 7,782 employees working at the Education Department in Tharparkar and 151 posts have been lying vacant. It shows that the government has sufficient infrastructure and manpower to cater for the educational needs of almost all school going children in Thar.
Mr Naimatullah Khan and his like-minded friends would retort that government schools cannot be reformed but I would like to share my personal experience that I gained while working with an organisation called AWARE in Tharparkar. We have set successful examples of bringing a visible change in the government-run schools. We took up a case where 62 schools were shown functional in a single village of Thar having a total population of 4,500 persons. Through coordination among various government departments, these 62 schools were merged in single schools; thus resources were saved. We have signed MoUs with the government department to train government school teachers and also formed and trained Village Education Committees. With the support of philanthropists and Action Aid, AWARE established Child Leaning Resource Centres and provided solar electricity. This has helped in bringing refreshing improvement in the school environment and teachers are not only motivated to teach but teach according to modern pedagogical techniques. The funds of school management committees are being utilised to meet educational needs of schools. Anyone can come and see this healthy change in 10 schools, where AWARE has provided facilities.
JAN MUHAMMAD SAMOO
Tharparkar