The Alliance for Protection of Human Rights (APHR), a group of Civil Society Organisations, has condemned the closure of 204 community primary schools for girls in NWFP. In a press release issued here on Friday.
The members of the alliance including Aurat Foundation, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Noor Education Trust, Khwendo Kor, Shirkat Gah, Strengthening Participatory Organisation, Human Resource Management and Development Centre and Sungi Development Foundation deplored that the shutdown of the schools by the government had snatched the right to education from 14,000 girl students and rendered 408 woman teachers jobless in all the 24 districts of the province.
The APHR noted with concern that the NWFP was already lacking in literacy and the closing of 204 schools would further take down the literacy rate. "The literacy rate in the country is 53 percent while it is 45 in NWFP. The man literacy rate is 62 percent while women's stood at 26 percent", added the press release, while blasting the government move to shut a large number of primary schools.
The APHR reminded the government that the primary level education was the responsibility of the state and the government that was not being shouldered properly. "It is disturbing to note that 204 girls community schools set-up and run by the Department for International Development (DFID), United Kingdom in year 2002-3 have been closed down just because the MMA government has failed to sustain them after the withdrawal of the foreign donor agency", the group lamented.
The rights-based organisations questioned as to why the provincial government did not put in pace a plan to sustain the schools despite a clear commitment and declaration to this effect. The group recalled that the NWFP government was a party to the project agreement and had pledged to regularise these schools and provide them with buildings after the commitment period of three years ended in July 2005 when the donors left the project. The APHR pointed out that when the schools came under the control of the government in 2005, teachers were not even paid their salaries after December 2006. "This forced the teachers to take to the street to register their protest but all that could not make the Directorate of Schools and Literacy of the NWFP to realise the situation", deplored the rights body.
Flaying the authorities directives to the girl students to turn to other schools for continuing education, the organisations reminded the government that the community schools were set up in the localities where there were no existing learning facilities within a radius of 20-km. "How will the small girls go to the schools which are more than 20-km away from their defunct schools, the APHR questioned the government. The rights organisations said the civilised nations accorded utmost importance to the primary schooling as that was the backbone of the education, but the case was otherwise when it came to the NWFP government.