150 schools shut in KP due to low enrollment

haripur — The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Elementary and Secondary Education Department has closed 150 schools in the Haripur district during the last three years owing to low enrolment and shifted their students and staff to nearby schools.

According to the new education policy which takes into account enrolment and distance between schools, all schools having less than 50 students enrollment were closed.

Under the new policy, 150 boys and girls schools were shut during 2015 to 2017 including three boys middle schools, 141 primary schools and nine girls schools.

Many children were unable to continue their education in other schools owing to many reasons.

Parent of many children could not afford the cost of public transport or arrange private vehicles for their kids while some claimed that 3 or 5km walk in hilly areas was difficult which forced them to stop sending their kids particularly girls to new schools.

A Union Council Beatgali member Ghazi Noor Hussain said after the closure of a girls primary school in his village where 27 students were enrolled, 15 to 20 students stopped education altogether as their school was merged with another school 1.5km from their village, forcing parents to stop their daughters from walking alone that distance in the hilly terrain.

He further said the victims of the new education policy were the people of hilly areas where roads and other means of transport are limited and parents were opposed to sending their daughters to far off schools.

District Education Officer (DEO) Haripur Omer Khan Kundi said the department has shutdown 100 primary schools which were established as one-room one-teacher mosque schools and later converted into primary schools.