The massive earthquake
that hit Azad Jammu and Kashmir
and parts of eastern NWFP (mainly Hazara) on October 8,
has reportedly killed over 50,000 persons, injured tens
of thousands, and left three million homeless in Pakistan
and India, is unfortunately going to set back education
and literacy in the region by decades. Out of the worst
affected areas, literacy levels in AJK and parts of Abbotabad
and Mansehra districts were higher than the national average
while Kohistan was just the opposite, with the one of
the highest levels of illiteracy.
Though the government so far has not released exact figures
of the number of dead schoolchildren and teachers (and
many believe that its official death toll of 25,000 also
seems a bit conservative), it is feared that thousands
of schoolchildren and teachers must have died. As the
ISPR spokesman, Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan on one of the
days following the quake, the magnitude of the tragedy
is such that it may be fair to say that the region has
lost a whole generation of young children and students.
The timing of the earthquake couldn’t have been
worse — it struck at 8.50 in the morning, just about
the time when schools and colleges in the region would
have been in full swing. Had it happened on a Sunday perhaps
the death toll — at least in terms of dead schoolchildren
— may have been lower but that all may seem irrelevant
now.
According to an NWFP minister, around 7,000 school
buildings in that province alone have been destroyed
or badly damaged. As for AJK, the buildings housing
classrooms and dormitories of the University of Azad
Jammu and Kashmir are said to have all collapsed killing
hundreds. The university has over 1,200 students on
its rolls and over 250 teachers. It has campuses in
Muzaffarabad which has been destroyed and one in Rawalakot
as well, though the state of that remains so far unknown.
In Balakot, the newly-built Government Degree College
in Hassa near the town collapsed and at least 150 bodies
were retrieved from it. The Government Degree College
for Girls had 300 students while the Government High
School had around 1,000 students and the International
Islamia Model School 600. A British rescue worker was
quoted in a Reuters news report as saying that 900 students
were killed in one school alone. There were two other
(most likely in the private sector) institutions as
well, Shaheen Girls Degree College and Shaheen Boys
Commerce
College, which collapsed as well and both had enrolment
running into the hundreds. Balakot also has a primary
school and according to one report out of 175 students
only 25 were left alive.
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