Gojal: Authorities’ apathy turns govt middle school into an eyesore for students

Gojal, March 21: (INP) The Education Department of Gilgit-Baltistan where has failed to complete several development projects in the region, has turned a blind eye to the twelve-year old up gradation issue of a government primary school in district Hunza-Nagar’s Hussaini Gojal village. Approval to the up gradation of Hussaini government primary school to middle school was given in 2002 by the then Chief Executive of the Gilgit Baltistan Legislative Assembly, Mir Ghazanfar Ali Khan, which is yet to be completed, despite completion of the school building in early 2004. The authority’s apathy has forced hundreds of male and female students from the village to go to school in the vicinity, on a distance of more than ten miles (16 kilometers)-both sides, daily, amidst harsh weather conditions. So far, at least two students from the Hussaini village have lost their lives and six others were disabled in different road mishaps, while on their way to school. After destruction of the Karakoram Highway (KKH) following the Attabad disaster in 2010, has turned life more miserable for the helpless students, they have to walk through rocky hills to reach schools. Chairman Union Councilor Sher Ullah commenting on the matter said the apathy of the district administration and the provincial education department has made the decade-long school problem, a sore eye for the villagers. He said the prolonged delay for a decade, in up-gradation of a school proves the incompetency and ignorance of the authorities concerned. He said that the school building consist of six classrooms was completed in 2004, which is really shameful that just six class room have been built for a middle school, as it’s not enough even for a primary school, he added.

Baig said the walls, doors and windows of the school were damaged before using it for any purpose and so far it has been renovated for three times.

Aman Karim President of the Village Education Committee (VCC) said ‘we are just fed up and have become frustrated with the behaviors and lame accuses of the education department for more than a decade”. He said that ‘if the education department of Hunza-Nagar want, it can curb our woes in a day’ but we really don’t know the reason of why they prolong the matter and to put our children in trouble, the disappointed Karim lamented. Karim said “we have been given dates by the education authorities to formally launch the school, for the last many years but subsequently no one comes to the village”. A man whose two children-a daughter and a son go to school in the village next to Hussaini, on condition of not to be named, called upon the Speaker Gilgit-Baltistan Legislative Assembly (GBLA) Wazir Baig-who was elected from this constituency with heavy margin, to personally look into the matter and resolve the issue at earliest. He said we twice voted Wazir Baig and Mir Ghazanfar Ali Khan into power just with this single demand to address the education problem of the village but having resumed the power they forgot everything, he added. The people of the Hussaini village have expressed grave concern over the prolonged ignorance by both the district administration and provincial education department towards the issues and have demanded of the Chief Minister Gilgit-Baltistan, Syed Mehdi Shah and Education Minister Ali Madad Sher to take notice of the matter and launch the school as soon as possible, with providing qualified teachers, furnitures and other necessary things.