LARAKANA: In response of the story with the title ‘120 USAID funded schools not yet established in Sindh’ published in Daily Times on March 29, 2017, Abdul Wahab Soomro, Program Director, Project Management & Implementation Unit, Sindh Basic Education Program has said that for some technical reasons, the school could not be completed on time.
“To set the record straight, I would like to inform that SBEP is operating in Sukkur, Larkana, Khairpur, Kashmore, Dadu, Qambar Shahdadkot, Jacobabad and five towns of Karachi and only 106 schools are being constructed under the program as opposed to the 120 quoted in the report,” said Soomro, adding that to date the program has achieved significant successes, including completion of 23 schools in Sukkur and Khairpur districts, while construction on another 79 schools is well under way -18 of these schools are expected to be completed by December 2017, of these 3 will be in Larkana.
It is worth mentioning that these schools were supposed be completed by 2016.
Talking about the damaged by schools during 2010 floods, he said that a third party survey was conducted prior to the selection of the schools, and strict compliance was accorded with the set selection criteria, as opposed to alleged political selection.
He said the number of students in SBEP schools has now reached 116,629, of which 38,812 are newly-enrolled through the efforts of the SBEP’s dedicated Community Mobilization Program. “Through the same community engagement initiatives, private land owners have voluntarily come forward to donate land worth Rs. 49.4 million for 20 government schools in Khairpur, Sukkur, Larkana & Dadu districts as a service to education,” he added.
On other hand, the data available on the official website of SBEP, approved PC-1 and ground realities, clearly states that the proposed school could not completed on time.
On the other hand, this Scribe visited on Saturday as many as three schools in Pir Jo Goth, Phulpota and Saidu Dero villages of Ratodero Taluka & found construction of these schools was started on 17th October 2014 which was to be completed by 16 April 2016 but construction is still underway. These schools were to be established on need basis but other schools are also working nearby which proved that without proper feasibility the construction was started.
Sindh Basic Education Program is supporting Government of Sindh for construction of state of the art child-friendly schools by developing school environments conducive to teaching and learning. Under this program 106 child-friendly schools (1,400 classrooms) will be constructed. The construction of these schools with the necessary provision of facilities shall invariably increase the enrollment of students.
The 2010 floods affected approximately 5,000 schools in Sindh of which approximately 2,500 schools were completely destroyed. This natural catastrophe hindered the education of thousands of children in Sindh. USAID intends to build approximately 75 schools (900 classrooms) affected by the floods.
