Schools in the Sandana and Speen Drand areas of Bara in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa reopened after almost a decade, a testament to how much societal damage the TTP and other terrorist groups have done. Virtually all civilians in the area were internally displaced for most of this time, with people only being allowed to return in large numbers last year. But the children returning to their homes along the Afghan border were already behind in their education due to the lack of facilities for IDPs, and then had to go several more months without any school access at all.

Local activists finally got the provincial government to follow up on providing children with access to education. Despite the limited resource deployment — only one teacher and over 50 students — activists have been assured that staff will increase in the coming weeks and months, and the student body is also expected to increase as more families return to the region, including those who were waiting for schools to reopen.

The government too needs to do more to ensure that children have access to school uniforms, bags, stationery and other essential accessories, since students are presently dependent on local philanthropists. There is also still a desperate need to invest in the rehabilitation of war-torn areas which has been further complicated by the cash crunch at the federal and provincial levels. Then we have the never-ending problem of security. Within a few months of the government and security agencies deeming the area safe for locals to return, the ceasefire with the TTP collapsed, and a new wave of violence began. On a related note, sporadic reports of increased clan violence have also occurred in recent months, mostly due to competition for limited resources.

This illustrates the cyclical problem that must be addressed to resolve the area’s issues — for education, we need security; for security, we need employment opportunities; for employment opportunities, we need education; and for all of these, we need investment.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 14^th, 2023.

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