K H Y BE R/ S OUT H WAZIRISTAN: Faced with serious deficiency of teachers at primary level, Khyber education department launched on Thursday enrolment of out-of-school children.

Officials said that though the number of newly-enrolled children would be determined by every school individually, roughly they estimated to `attract` more than 90,000 boys and girls during the fresh campaign.

They said that they expected around 53,000 boys to be enrolled in all primary schools of the district while 42,000 girls were expected to be lured into primary level education.

Officials, however, expressed concern over shortage of teachers at primary level as the dis-trict was lagging far behind the provincial level student-teacher ratio (STR) with Khyber currently having one teacherfor every 29 students against provincial STR of 1:13.

They said that last year statistics showed that they required at least 750 male and 580 female teachers for primary schools in Khyber.

`The number of the required teaching staff may increase if we are able to achieve the set target of enrolment,` an official, requesting not to be named, told Dawn.

He said that theirdepartment was also faced with shortage of classrooms despite completion of reconstruction and repair of several damaged schools as the number of students was rapidly swelling with every passing month.

`Currently we have a total of 630 rooms available for primary students whereas we need 1,100 classrooms to accommodate all the enrolled students at primary level,` he said.

In Lower South Waziristan, Wana Welfare Association (Wawa) organised a mass enrollment cam-paign to ensure that `every child goes to school`.

The campaign, which has become an annual hallmark event for Wawa, received unprecedented public response this year. The initiative, focused on boosting school enrolment and raising awareness about the right to education, featured rallies, awareness walks and community events across Wana, Birmal, Shakai, Spin, Tanai, and surrounding areas.

Thousands of children, parents, teachers, tribal elders, politicalleaders, social workers and community leaders took part in the events.

Carrying banners and placards, they marched through towns and villages.

The central rally was held in Wana Bazaar that culminated at local high school. The event drew thousands of participants, who chanted slogans in favour of education.

Speaking on occasion, Wawa president Rehmatullah Wazir said that education was every child`s fundamental right. `Without education, sustainable peace, prosperity, andsocietal progress remain out ofreach.Our goalis to ensure thateveryboy and every girlhas access to school,` he said.

Deputy Commissioner Nasir Khan also attended the main rally.

He assured participants of his full support for promotion of education.

Tribal elders urged government to improve infrastructure of schools, provide adequate teaching staffand ensure equal educational opportunities for all. On the occasion, several parents announced toenroltheirchildrenin schools.