No public school in Christian locality of a million people

LAHORE, Dec 24: Housing some one million souls,Youhanabad, the country’s biggest Christian locality, is without a public sector school.

A visit to the locality exposes Punjab government’s “commitment and top priority for education” as a large population of school-going age children are seen either in streets or doing odd jobs.

Most of the residents in decades old locality are illiterate and try their both ends meet while working as labourers.

The Christian locality comprising Youhanaabad No 1 and No 2, Asif Town No 1 and No 2; and Khaliq Nagar have no public sector schools.

The Jahandad Society for Community Development (JSCD) in collaboration with the Unicef had recently conducted a sample 280 households’ survey in Youhanaabad and found some 314 three to 10 years of age out-of-school children.

The magnitude of the illiteracy prob lem can be gauged from the fact that there were around 60,000 households in the locality, said JSCD-Unicef’s Young Champions for Education project coordinator Hina Akbar.

Pastor Mahmood Masih told journalists that the poor population living in Youhanaabad also deserves the right of education.

“The Punjab government must look towards this poor locality and provide them at least primary schools for girls and boys,” he said.

Majeeda, a mother of four, said she could not afford to send her children to school because for most of the time they did not have anything to eat.

She said that she would surely send her children to school if there would be a free public school facility available in the locality.

JSCD’s Young Champion for Education Sarah Mahmood said she had accepted the task of motivating masses within the locality to send their chil dren to schools.

She said that she motivated parents while paying several visits to their houses and got some 177 out of 314 identified out-of-school children admitted to low-fee private schools.

Sarah Mahmood, who herself is preparing for intermediate examinations, said it was really satisfying to see out-ofschool children to schools and they also showed their regard for her.

A young student, Sharal, said the Young Champions had helped her get admission to Class-IV in private Archride Public school. Another young champion Obaid Mahmood said the JSCD had also provided uniforms to a number of students.

EDO (Education) Dr Muhammad Arshad admitted that there was no government school within the locality but there were schools in other localities across the road and within one to two kilometre radius of Youhanaabad.