As many as 156 schools have been non-functional for years in Awaran, the hometown of Balochistan Chief Minister Abdul Qadoos Bizenjo.
Local activists put the number at 176, but District Education Officer Niaz Ullah said that the number was 156.
Talking to Minute Mirror, the education officer said, “It is correct to say that 156 schools are nonfunctional in district Awaran over non-availibility of teachers. More than 600 posts of teaching staff (non-gazetted) from B-09 to B-15 and around 300 posts of teaching staff (gazetted: B-17) have been lying vacant for a while. The schools will be functional when the recruitment process of teachers has been completed.”
He added that the closure of schools was affecting around 10,000 students, who could not study because of the situation.
The district has also been hit by insurgency and is considered one of the poorest regions of the province.
A resident of the district told Minute Mirror on the condition of anonymity, “Most of these are primary schools. Some of them were approved in May 2018, but teaching has not commenced there yet.”
Many have wondered if they had been nonfunctional for years, why previous governments failed to take any action.
Minute Mirror contacted the former spokesperson of the Balochistan government Jan Muhammad Buledi, who expressed his surprise over the closure, saying, “It did not come into our knowledge that these schools were closed when we were in government.”
He added that the government of his party recruited more than 5,000 teachers based on merit through the NTS, posting them to various areas of the province. Buledi said if they were closed now, then the current government should be held responsible.
A local activist and a member of Malik Institute Kolwa Nusrat Shamim told Minute Mirror that these schools had been closed since 2006 or 2007 due to shortage of teachers. The government ordered recruiting 900 teachers but only 50 were hired, he said, adding that 850 were yet to be appointed.
Awaran has been hit by a Baloch insurgency and Nusrat believes many teachers left the area because of poor law and order situation, while the earthquake of 2013 also contributed.
The activist said that the people formed Balochistan Education Forum, and protested against the shortage of teachers, but to no avail.
He said that in 2018, a bill was passed to set up more schools, but it was not implemented. “We demand the government to at least restore the existing schools by hiring teachers if they cannot establish new places of learning,” said an irate Nusrat.
“All the school buildings are empty; the district needs at least 1,000 teachers,” he added.
