LANDI KOTAL: The Directorate of Education, Fata, in collaboration with donor agencies has started rebuilding and rehabilitation of the damaged schools in the militancy-affected Bara sub-division of Khyber Agency.

Officials said that reconstruction of over 60 per cent of the schools damaged partially or extensively was underway and at least two primary schools, one each for boys and girls, had already been reopened in Bara tehsil area and Meelward Akkakhel locality.

Talking to this correspondent, agency education officer Rauf Afridi said that a total of 93 schools were extensively damaged and 58 partially in acts of terrorism during the last one decade of militancy in different parts of Bara.

He said that it would take another 18 to 20 months to complete the entire process of rebuilding of all the affected schools as the reconstruction activities were being carried out at a good pace.

Mr Afridi said that his department had arranged for tent schools in different localities of Bara where the school buildings were flattened.

He conceded that there was dearth of basic facilities in the tent schools, but said that these had been made as comfortable as possible for the students.

`I am optimistic that all students of tent schools would be shifted to the cemented buildings within one and a half years,` he said and added that the department was aware of the hardships being faced by the students in tent schools due to harsh weather conditions both in summer and winter.

About the ongoing enrolment campaign in Bara,especially after the return of displaced families, the agency education officer claimed to have enrolled about 20,000 new students of the total target of 27,000 in the entire Khyber Agency in the first phase of enrolment which ended in September.

He said that the enrolment had been temporarily suspended due to shortage of free books and stationary and the process would be resumed once his office was provided with free books.

He said that the Fata Education Foundation had also initiated a scheme for enrolling those students who had their schooling suspended due to displacement for almost a decade by establishing `learning schools` in different parts of Bara.

`We are offering one-year comprehensive course for the left-out overage students to enable them to make up for the loss of their schooling time and enable them to get themselves enrolled in formal schools af ter completion of their one-year course,` he explained.

Mr Afridi said that Bara sub-division was exempted from the rationalisation policy of the Fata Secretariat as the region had suffered a lot due to the decade-long militancy and terrorism.

`I have pleaded before the officials concerned to spare Bara schools from closure under the new policy as majority of the local students had stayed away from their respective areas due to the law and order situation in most parts of Bara and thus the exact figure of students in schools could not be determined,` he said.

Meanwhile, Khyber Agency political agent Khalid Mehmud inaugurated a newly-rebuilt primary school for boys in Meelward area and said on the occasion that the reconstruction process would take some time to complete.