Qillah Abdullah residents demand restoration of schools destroyed in floods

At least 75 schools in the district were destroyed due to the floods

Masud Achakzai

This year’s devastating floods have also destroyed large number of schools in Qillah Abdullah district of Balochistan.

Following the rains and floods, Balochistan government kept schools for two weeks. However, the parents are still anxious and demanding reasonable steps for their children education.

Samiullah , a local said that as parents they wanted their children to study in good schools. “Recent rains destroyed our educational institutions and it affected our children education,” he said.

He said that government should reconstruct their schools to revive education.

Besides parents, students are also anxious over this situation.

They said that they spend this year in difficult situation; however, government should improve their schools conditions in this year.

Abrar Ahmed, a seventh grader said that rain water inundated their school for about two week and government kept the schools closed during this duration. “We now hope that government will improve the situation of our schools,” he said.

Besides, government, UNICEF is also working to improve school’s situation.

UNICEF Qillah Abdullah’s programme manger Jamil Khan Kakar told TNN that they were striving to restore the schools of the district. He said that 75 of districts schools have been affected due to the floods and they were currently restoring them.

“We put school children into a room and then do the restoration work on the rest,” Jamil said.

He said that they were working on schools with the collaboration of district education department.

On the other hand, education department officials said that restoration of schools will be completed by start of next academic year.

District education officer Abdul Manan Achakzai said that rains and floods have affected schools buildings. “75 schools of the district were affected due to the floods,” he said.

Besides, he said that five schools were completely destroyed while others were partially damaged.

“We have shared this data with government and UNICEF and currently working on their restoration,” he said.

Qillah Abdullah flood affectees are of the view that quality basic education was the right of every child and it was government responsibility to educate their children.

“There should not be negligence in education of our children,” they demanded.