Freezing of accounts puts future of Broghil schools at stake
CHITRAL: The recent freezing of the accounts of Central Asia Institute Gilgit has put the future of hundreds of students at stake who are enrolled in schools run by the institute in the remote Broghol valley of Upper Chitral.
Former bureaucrat Sultan Wazir on Tuesday called upon the KP government to take over the private schools being run by Central Asia Institute in the Broghil valley to save the future of the students.
In a statement, he said there are one high and eight primary schools in Broghil and one intermediate college in Yarkhun Lasht that were being managed by the Central Asia Institute since 2015-16.
The primary schools are located in different villages of Broghil such as Garam Chashma, Kishmanja, Gherarum and Rukut while the high school is at Chimalarbad village. There were 544 students in the intermediate college and schools while the number of teachers and other staff is 46.
Mr Wazir said in March this year the accounts of the Central Asia Institute were frozen by the government over a legal case after which payment of salaries to the teaching an non-teaching staff and supply of books and stationery remained suspended.
This has put the future of the students in the remote area where there are no other educational institutes at state.
The schools have their refurbished buildings and have been providing education to the children of the area and the government would have no issue in running the institutes to continue education of the children.
He said the legal case against the Central Asia Institute should be processed on a priority basis and till the case is disposed of the government should manage the schools.
The Govt. of Pakistan stopped operations of its own schools meant to benefit its citizens living in the remotest of villages over a legal dispute!!! This is catchy and scandalous. How on earth a state puts the citizens aside and gets into a controversy with an institution (good or bad)?. Who will pay for it? The people of Broghil of course. To be fair with the people; they have nothing to do with who runs and how they run these schools for as long as these schools give their children the education they need, rightly and justly. Since when the Govt. of Pakistan became a profit entity looking at the basic needs of these people as something to play politics with? and why? How come there is no philanthropist in Pakistan who could save us from this embarrassment and fund the schools? I wasn’t fond of Maslow’s theory of hierarchy of needs but now, after looking at situations such as this, may be he was right. “Ibn e Maryam huwa kare koi, Mere dukh ki dawa kare koi”.
Saif.