Pakistan's Ghost Schools
- Zersh Salman
- Aug 22, 2021
- 2 min read
Ghost schools are non-functioning schools that exist on paper but are never open. These schools were either declared as existing but never built in the first place, or they were closed for teachers and students - therefore serving no purpose. There are around 30,000 such schools all over Pakistan.
In Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal regions, out of the 6000 government schools, more than 2,300 are non-functioning or have been shut down. In the past, there has been a surge of internally displaced people due to continuous conflict and sectarian violence in FATA. Pakistan's government claims that conditions have been improved for residents through restoration of peace. However, those long-displaced people returning to their homes face a very different reality. In addition to poor health care systems and infrastructure, they are faced with a shortage of open schools. Locals argue that Taliban bombed a lot of schools in the region, the government re-constructed some of them, but most of them never re-opened.
Educational activists in these areas believe that while providing security through military operations is essential to take down militant groups and restore peace, quality education is even more important to resist Taliban forces and their agendas. In fragile regions like FATA, lack of education gives rise to further instability and extremism.
The plague of ghost schools is not limited to tribal regions in Pakistan, with 7,000 such schools existing throughout Sindh. The poor and violence-stricken neighborhood of Lyari in Karachi has been struggling with keeping schools open. Apart from violence in the region, constant government neglect, mismanagement, and corruption have been root causes of this issue. Lack of proper school infrastructure, poor learning environment, excessive teacher absenteeism, and constant threats from drug addicts in the region - all have led to alarmingly low enrollment and retention rates.
Let's talk
What do you think are some necessary interventions that the government needs to take in the case of schools in FATA and Lyari?
Have you ever seen a ghost school in your region? If yes, why was that school closed down? Was it ever re-opened?
Many ghost schools are present in my region,unfortunately these schools have been abandoned by the government and are empty foundations on plots of land,the simple most major problem these schools face is lack of funding
I have not witnessed these schools myself, but a friend of mine told me about ghost schools in interior Sindh. The condition of the school was so bad that people would use it as a land-fill-site. It is very sad to see such conditions of our country's schools.
I knew about ghost schools but tbh I had no idea the situation was this bad.. Read up on it and found that in Lyari, specifically, what's helped is reallocating the funds from the school education department directly to the school management committee (that includes the principal, teachers, few parents, and social workers within the particular school. Some case studies from Lyari show that these interventions did help to an extent (significantly more than when the funds were being given to the education department) because the funds were now actually being used on improving the schools rather than being 'lost' along the way.
The government doesn't cater to education in these areas. They just keep on doing their so called developmental work in meetings rather than doing ground breaking changes in policy areas.
Yes, there are many ghost schools in my village and that is because of the negligence of government and lack of any accountability and check and balances. Principals and teachers of those schools never really showed up. There is just one working public school in my village where the quality of education is not satisfactory. There is urgent need of government intervention and check and balance to re-open these schools.