KHYBER: Literacy rate in the picturesque Tirah valley is on decline as a number of newly-constructed schools could not be made functional owing to wrangling among different government departments for the last five years.

Students in Malakdinkhel Karnakhel village, Bar Q ambar Narhaw Kallay and Lalay Kas, Bar Bagh areas have to walk for more than three kilometres to reach schools in other localities as middle schools in their villages are yet to be sanctioned teaching staff while construction of some school buildings are yet to be completed.

Residents of Bar Qambar Narhaw Kallay told Dawn that a number of students quit studies while some of them went to another school about three kilometres away from their village as the newly-constructed middle school in the area was yet to be made functional.

Shafiq Jan, a resident of the area, said that the newly-constructed school building was now used by locals for offering funerals and fateha, car parking and storage of firewood or other domestic items.

He said that parents in his village were interested in enrolling their children but they were disappointed withthe perpetual delay in posting of teachers to the school, which was completed in 2018.

Sources in education department told Dawn that appointment of teaching staff to some newly-constructed schools in Tirah was delayed as the deputy commissioner office expressed reservations over the quality of construction of their buildings.

They said that though communication and works department handed over those schools to education department, the quality of construction was sopoor that they had to renegotiate with officials for repair of the faulty construction.

`The quality of middle school in Narhaw in particular is very poor and education department has refused to take its charge while the DC office too rejected the request for handing over the building on the same grounds,` sources told Dawn.

They also accused the provincial finance department for unnecessarily dragging its feet over the sanction of staff for other schools where construc-tion work was comparatively satisfactory.

`We have now forwarded our case for creation of posts in newly-constructed schools in Tirah but the caretaker setup in the province is now a hindrance as it is not legally authorised to approve creation of such posts,` official sources said.

Meanwhile, tourists and locals were irked by intense security checking at various checkposts along the road leading to Tirah during Eid days.

Tourists had to wait for hoursat Dwa Thoey checkpost, the entry point to the valley, as they were made to undergo physical search and verification of their identity cards.

Local women, children and the elderly people suffered the most as they were made to wait for a long time while the security personnel were busy in identification process of the non-local tourists.

Sources said that some of the passenger vehicles had to take the longer route via Dabori Pass from Hangu side to avoid prolonged checking.