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CHALLENGE
District Mansehra comprises of three Tehsils and 59 Union Councils (UC’s). The deadly earthquake of 2005 severely affected nearly 17 UC’s of District Mansehra. Education sector suffered the major brunt as out of 2215 primary schools in five Districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), including District Mansehra almost 1,392 primary schools were destroyed due to the earthquake. Most of the damaged schools in District Mansehra were reconstructed and provided with missing facilities through the support of NGO’s and donor organizations. Although the organizations working in education sector worked relentlessly to cover all schools in the District in terms of missing facilities, however the occurance of various other natural and man made disasters in the country between 2008-2010 shifted their focus to new emergencies.
As a result, many schools in District Manshera were left out and even today they are deprived of the basic facilities. The lack of physical infrastructure has affected the retention rates, particularly among the female students and as result the literacy rate dropped from 67 per cent to 64 per cent, since October 2005.
INITIATIVE
In order to improve the teaching and learning environment in primary schools of the District Mansehra, Sahara Community Support Programme (SCSP) carried out a detailed assessment in District Mansehra and identi-fied 13 schools (6 boys and 7 girls) which were totally neglected and not supported by any organization for missing facilities during the last 3-4 years
To improve access to education and contribute in increasing enrollment rate and reducing the dropout rates in 12 Government primary and 01 Government Middle school of District Mansehra through improved teaching and learning environment USAID awarded a grant worth USD 99,508 under the U.S Ambassador’s Fund Program from May 2013 to Feb 2014 to make these schools an attractive place for the young children
RESULT
Under this project these 13 schools received student benches with desks, teacher tables, teacher chairs, blackboards and cup-boards. Besides these water coolers, floor mats, dusters, chalk boxes, first aid kits and recreational kits. By improving learning environment and provision of missing facilities enrollment in these schools has increased from 2104 to 2254 in few months’ time. In total 58 teachers (30 male & 28 female) & 2254 students (1158 boys & 1096 girls) have benefited through this project.
“We used to sit on the floor during summers and winters, now we have new benches, chairs and our school looks new and col-orful. We now have water tank which has solved the problem of water shortage. Before due to water shortage we couldn’t use washroom in the school and had to go to the open fields and it didn’t feel good. I feel so good spending my time in my school with my friends. Thank you USAID for making our school so perfect for us,” says Shazia Shahwali with a big smile, at one of the government schools.
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