Kajaki parents longing to see kids back to school

LASHKARGAH (PAN): The government should do whatever it can to reopen schools shut down years before due to insecurity in the Kajaki district of southern Helmand province, residents demanded on Thursday.

“Over the past four years, the academic activity in Kajaki has been at a standstill due to the ongoing insecurity,” tribal elder Haji Abdul Samad told Pajhwok Afghan News.

“In the entire district, there is only one school that is operational in the district centre,” the resident said, calling on the education ministry to make efforts at paving the ground for reopening all closed schools in order parents could see their children back to school.

Another resident Syed Mohammad remarked ‘not a single project could be executed in Kajaki over the past many years as a result of insecurity’.

“Illiteracy gives birth to crime. Crimes committed by illiterate adults are more in number as compared to the literate ones because the most of uneducated have no skill in their hand to earn money,” Mohammad said, adding well-off people sent their children for education to Lashkargah, the provincial capital. “For those in poverty, education remains an unmet dream in Kajaki.”

The dwellers said their repeated calls for reopening closed schools fell on deaf ears.

Governor Mohammad Naeem said the reopening of schools remained his administration’s top priority, saying he had held a series of meetings with education authorities on ways how to overcome the issue that he said could be resolved with people’s cooperation.

However, the education director, Mohammad Nasim Sapi, put at three the number of primary schools operational in Kajaki, where he acknowledged 18 primary and two high schools had been shut over the past many years.

ma

Visits: 1