Pakistan Losing schools to terrorism : ''The Real Education Emergency''

Mirza Khurram Shahzad

When Bakhtawar was two years old, she heard from her parents that a school is being built in her village to educate girls. Since that day she was eager to see the place where girls would go for studies and was waiting to start her education. When she turned four, the school building was completed and she was told by her parents that soon she will be attending classes there. But before she could buy her school uniform and books, her dream was quite literally shattered. The militants hiding in the mountains near her village Masho Khawarr in Shabqadar Tehsil of District Charsadda, attempted to level the school with a high intensity explosion.

“I wanted to study in this school. My parents had already promised to get me books and uniform to attend school. But now I can’t study because the school building has been destroyed,” Bakhtawar told Pique while standing close to the broken windowpanes and doors of the Government Girls Primary School Masho Khawarr.

What remains of the school building, completed just six months earlier, rests shaken and jolted from the tremours of the blast. The red bricks of the building seem to be clinging on to each other to keep from completely collapsing. Shreds of window panes, scattered plaster and broken windows greet curious onlookers.

Behind the blue gate at the entrance, all four steel windows in the back wall of a classroom have been deformed and broken loose of their hinges. On the front side, another three have been rendered distorted. The door to the classroom no longer exists at all. Inside, a two foot deep crater in the floor explains the entire story.

Pieces of a door opening to another classroom are dissipated near the crater. Six windows of that one have also been destroyed. A Poplar tree is lying in the courtyard, bemoaning the school’s fate. “I don’t know where I can study now. My parents say the school will be repaired but I don’t see any repair work here,” says little Bakhtawar in a gloomy voice.

This was the 829th school in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province which has been destroyed by the militants since 2008, according to the government’s own statistics.

The locals in the area say the school was destroyed even before the government appointed teachers or staff to run it. “We held talks with the Deputy Commissioner (DC) Charsadda for appointment of staff in this school a week before its destruction. He told us they don’t have funds to recruit staff for this school,” says Farman Ullah, whose utmost desire was to see this school, built across from his house, flourish and expand in the future.

“The DC even didn’t agree to give this school a watchman. He told us it’s the Member of Provincial Assembly (MPA) who can help getting funds and staff for this school,” Farman regrets.

But the militants from the Mohmand tribal district, just a few kilometres away from this village, decided to nip the ‘enlightenment’ in the bud. They planted an explosive device inside the building on April 30 of this year. Sometime around midnight the villagers in Masho Khawarr heard a huge explosion. Next morning, many saw cracks in the outside walls of the school.

“At least 200 girls of this village are in school going age but they don’t have a school to go to,” says Farman.

The total population of the village is over 1,000 people. There are several girls who are educated and wish to educate the newer generation, but there is no public space for it.

In most of the rural areas where such schools have been destroyed the landscape and social indicators are almost same. There are unpaved streets, sprawling fields of wheat and onion, scattered orchards of apricot lined with rows of Poplar trees. There are homes with cemented brick facades and traditional mud walls at the back. Half dressed children---girls and boys--roam around, chasing the cars, circling around the devastated buildings of schools.

The bombs have been exploded, education halted, and the militants have disappeared. The administration is confused. There are no signs of any attempts to restore the school structures. No heightened security. No arrests. The officials working in the education department feel trapped. 0yj

“We are helpless. We have no staff to protect schools. Over 800 schools have been destroyed in the whole province so far and thousands others are in danger, but we can’t do anything. The militants are too powerful,” said a senior official in the KPK education department on the condition of anonymity.

In Charsadda District alone, as many as 14 schools have been destroyed so far.

“Seven boys schools and as many girls schools have been blown up so far. The militants attack during night, and disappear without a trace,” says Siraj Khan, District Education Officer, Charsadda.

The worst situation is in the areas bordering with the tribal districts, authorities are reluctant to accept responsibility.”This area is suffering because of its location,” says local journalist Najeeb-ur-rehman Khan.

“Taliban used to openly patrol here and in Shabqadar Bazar a year ago. They still exist in the nearby mountains but don’t come here in the daylight now because of strategic reasons. But they do carry out such activities from time to time in the dark of the night to establish their presence,” he says. “There are 25 villages in this area which have been declared disputed. The tribal area administration in Mohmand Agency claim these fall under their jurisdiction while the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government says the provincial government is in charge here”.

“But nobody takes care of development and people suffer due to this squabble,” said Najeeb. The officials in the ministry of education say the reconstruction of the destroyed schools is slow because they have to get financial assistance from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

“The process of documentation and release of the grant in the USAID is very slow. So it delays the reconstruction of the destroyed school,” said a senior education ministry official in Peshawar.

Social observers believe that the areas where children are deprived of education because of the destruction of schools have started to severely lag behind the rest of the country in terms of education and social progress. “It’s a loss of generations. If a school is closed because a bomb has destroyed it, a full generation will grow up illiterate in that area,” says Sami Zuberi, a senior journalist who has reported on the conflict zones for more than 35 years. “We must address this issue as soon as possible. The schools must work, the children must be educated, come what may,” he said.