No water, no power supply to 10 schools since ‘15 years’

At least 10 government schools in the vicinity of Pakistan Steel Mills, Pipri and Shah Town areas are without electricity connection and drinking water, and it has become very difficult for the students and the teachers to pass the academic hours due to scorching heat with forecast of unaffordable rise in the mercury level in coming days.

A teacher from Government Boys Primary School in Sabu Goth (Pipri) told APP that five students at the school fainted because of high temperature and suffocation. There was no electricity or water supply arrangement at the school for the last 15 years since it was established, he added. The students of primary classes who fainted in the school include Sanam, Hakeema, Sugra, Bisma and Ishaque. They were shifted to a nearby health facility for first aid.

The schoolteacher said that the school also lacked washrooms and the children had no option but go outside at some isolated site to extreme embarrassment and security threat to these toddlers. They needed a proper compound wall for the security, he demanded.

“What could be expected from the students and the teachers to deliver in this very tough situation?” he wondered.

Some parents from Pipri and Shah Town areas – between the National Highway and Pakistan Steel – narrated the similar stories of nine other government schools situated there.

They cautioned that during this heatwave they would have no option but to keep their children away from the educational activities for their safety. They appealed to the government to provide electricity and drinking water on emergency basis to government schools to save the lives of their kids and the teachers besides construction of washrooms and boundary walls to ensure better academic environment to the children.