ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s top judge yesterday ordered a nationwide investigation of hundreds of “ghost” schools where teachers do nothing but draw salaries and buildings are occupied by animals.
“There are animals kept in schools and the buildings have been turned into stables. This is what we are doing to our children when education is a constitutional right,” Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry said.
Education is a major challenge in nuclear-armed Pakistan, where the United Nations Children’s Fund says public spending on education is less than 2.5 percent of GDP. Only nine countries in the world spend less on education.
Nearly half of all primary school age children and nearly three quarters of young girls are not enrolled in primary school in Pakistan, according to a UN and government report published in December.
Last October, education activist 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by the Taliban in the northwestern district of Swat. She is now recovering in England and has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Chaudhry yesterday took up a petition dating back a year from a charity in Pakistan’s southern province of Sindh, asking the Supreme Court to investigate fake schools, most of them in rural districts.
He ordered district judges across Pakistan to survey fake schools and submit a report by March 18. AFP
