TAXILA: A school located in the Hassanabdal town has been turned into a cattle pen by the local people showing the apathy of the government towards the promotion of education even though it has launched an education emergency in the province.

The lofty claims repeatedly made by Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif about maintaining a high standard of education prove hollow when one visits the Government Boys Primary School Qandharipur in Hassanabdal.

The school is located near the Hassanabdal Cadet College.The condition of the school also shows the class-based education system in the country.

The building was constructed almost six years ago but has never been made functional due to which over 300 students of the Qandharipur village and surrounding areas are forced to go to the Hassanabdal city.

Most of the parents even could not afford the transportation charges and hence their children have to walk to the city located at a distance of over four kilometres. Because of the absence of any school, a large number of students of the village are also forced to discontinue their education.

The education department constructed the school building at a cost of Rs0.5 million but made no efforts to get the teaching and other staff posted to the school to make it functional.

Now the local people are keeping their animals in the building besides storing fodder in the classrooms.

All the inner and outer walls of the classrooms are decorated with dung cakes.

Local women are also using the school`s walls for drying the dung cakes which they later sell out to those who use it as a fuel.

According to the local people, despite several applications submitted to the education department the school could not bemade functional. Even the current officers concerned have termed the school nonviable and absolved themselves of their responsibility to make the institute functional.

A class IV student, Qasim Ali, of the village said every day he had to travelonfoottothe government boys` elementary school in the Hassanabdal city and back. He said he had seen the school building in his village for many years but it was never functional. He wished the school would have been functional as it was located near his house.

Mehtab Hussain, a grade 2 student at the government boys` elementary school, said his father was a labourer and could not afford his travel expenses so he had to walk to the school in the city and back every day.

If this school is made functional, students of not only Qandharipur but other adjacent villages will get benefit.

`At present, students from this area have to travel to the Hassanabdal city or Wah Cantt to get education, said councillor Malik Habib Khan. He said the issue of the school had repeatedly been broughtinto the notice of the concerned of ficials of the education department but to no avail.

He said the natives of the area were labourers and could not afford to send their children to private educational institutions.

Union Council Vice Chairman Aqdas Hussain Shah Advocate said education was universally accepted as the pivotal factor for development, progress and enlightenment. But in the historical city of Hassanabdal, the situation is quite dif-ferent from what our leaders have been claiming. He said the school was dysfunctional for the last six years showing the utter negligence of the education department. He called upon the authorities concerned to make the school operational or hand it over to any NGO.

He said a report prepare d by the World Bank had stated that one per cent students moved from public schools to seminaries as the latter offered them free food and lodgingfacilities in addition toreligious education.

When contacted, District Officer (elementary education) Raja Zulfiqar said after the construction of the building the school was never made functional due to unknown reasons.

About the illegal occupation of the school building, he said as the building never came under the administrative control of the education department, the district administration can vacant it with the help of the police.