KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Wednesday directed the provincial education department to complete the reconstruction of 3,328 flood-affected schools and arrange funds for the remaining 16,480 damaged schools.
Officials said that while presiding over a meeting, the CM directed the education department to complete the reconstruction of 3,328 schools of the 19,808 damaged by the 2022 floods during the current financial year.
The meeting was held at the CM House and attended by Planning and Development Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah, Education Minister Syed Sardar Ali Shah, Planning and Development Board Chairman Najam Shah, Finance Secretary Fayaz Jatoi, Secretary to CM Raheem Shaikh, School Education Secretary Zahid Abbasi and others.
The CM was told that of the 19,808 schools, reconstruction and repair of 3,328 schools under different projects had either been started or was in the tender process. To this, the CM directed the education minister to personally monitor the construction work so that these schools could be reconstructed by the end of June 2025.
During the briefing, the CM was told that the repair of 1,769 schools and the reconstruction of 1,559 school buildings had been taken up under 10 different local and foreign-assisted projects for Rs114.3 billion.
It was said that the SSEIP (flood-assisted) project, 1,026 schools would be repaired and reconstructed for Rs62.6 billion, for which tenders had been issued. Under the SELECT project, 166 schools would be reconstructed for which tenders have been floated.
Through the DEEP project, 111 schools were under construction for Rs2.44 billion. In the ASPIRE project, four schools were under construction for Rs112.7 billion. China had given a grant of Rs7.6 billion for the reconstruction of 100 schools and the scheme was under approval process.
Under the PSDP, tenders for repair and reconstruction of 456 schools had been floated for Rs10.7 billion, the meeting was told.
The education minister told the CM that 824,008 children were enrolled in the 3,328 schools damaged by the floods. The CM directed the school education department to keep visiting the schools where repair work had been started or would be taken up to review their educational activities.
The school education department has developed a dashboard which reflects all 40,978 schools and their 5,219 784 enrolments. It also shows the 19,808 damaged schools, including 7,503 completely damaged. The dashboard has also the ability to track the development works carried out on the ground and even the process of procurement, tendering stage and approval process.
The CM directed the planning & development and school education department to complete the construction work of the 3,328 school buildings by the end of the current financial year. Meanwhile, he would arrange funds for the remaining 16480 schools so that they could also be repaired and reconstructed.