The United States will train 30,000 teachers and build 50 schools in quake affected areas of Pakistan, the US ambassador said on Sunday, on the first anniversary of an earthquake that killed 73,000 people.
Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker made the announcement during the inauguration by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz of the first school built by United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Dadar village in North West Frontier Province.
"The school buildings are the hardware and they have to have the software to go with it and that means the teachers," Crocker said while announcing plans to build 50 schools and train 30,000 teachers in Frontier province and Azad Kashmir. The quake killed more than 73,000 people in Pakistan, 1,500 in Indian occupied Kashmir, and left about 3.5 million homeless.
The education sector was particularly badly hit, 67 percent of schools and colleges in Pakistan's quake zone were destroyed or partially damaged, and 853 teachers and staff were killed. The quake struck at a time when classrooms were full and some 18,000 pupils died in the catastrophe.
Many parents have been reluctant to send children back to schools left standing, but classes were quickly resumed under canvas or in prefabricated buildings in order to reintroduce some sense of normality to children's lives.
Pupils at the Government Centennial Model High School were happy to get a new school building and cricket kits, given by Crocker. "We have played cricket for the first time in a year," said Muhammad Gulfaraz, a 17-year-old student after a match played before the ambassador.
The United States has pledged $510 million in the form of grants to help Pakistan in the aftermath of the quake, and $210 million has already been disbursed.
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