Two Primary Schools Restored in Wakht and Gobor Bakh, Handed to Lower Chitral Education Department

The Aga Khan Agency for Habitat (AKAH) formally handed over two newly constructed and rehabilitated primary-school buildings to the Lower Chitral Education Department on Saturday in the remote border villages of Wakht and Gobor Bakh in Garam Chashma Valley.

At the inauguration ceremonies, Lower Chitral Deputy Commissioner Ihsanullah unveiled the commemorative plaques at both schools. He was accompanied by AKAH Regional Programme Manager Altaf Hussain Shah, District Education Officer (DEO) Shahid Hussain, local elders and civil-society representatives.

AKAH completed the extensive rehabilitation project with financial support from the Pakistan-Afghanistan-Tajikistan Regional Integration Program (PATRIP) Foundation. The upgrade included additional classrooms and modern washrooms, conversion of the buildings to solar power, installation of razor wire on boundary walls and ramps to improve access for children with special needs. Green retrofitting techniques were also introduced in the classrooms to support environmental sustainability and resilience to natural hazards.

At the ceremonies, Parent-Teacher Council chairmen Sher Azam of Wakht school and Ismail Khan of Gobor Bakh school expressed their satisfaction with the high standard of the rehabilitation work and thanked those involved. They said the schools had been established in the 1980s and that the buildings had not been maintained for more than 40 years, while basic facilities were also lacking. “This high-quality renovation has exceeded our expectations. There is now renewed enthusiasm among our children to attend school; even children who did not previously go to school are eager to enrol here,” they said.

Addressing the border communities, Deputy Commissioner Ihsanullah praised AKAH’s timely and reliable work on disaster prevention and infrastructure development across the district. He said Chitral’s school-enrolment rate was exemplary across the province and credited joint efforts by development organisations such as AKAH. He assured residents that the district administration would continue its full support to remove obstacles to quality education.

AKAH Regional Programme Manager Altaf Hussain Shah discussed the project’s technical aspects, explaining that green retrofitting techniques make school buildings highly secure against earthquakes and other ground movements. He also said work was progressing rapidly to rehabilitate and upgrade four more government schools in Upper Chitral using the same approach.

District Education Officer Shahid Hussain praised the quality of the newly provided facilities and urged parents to increase children’s enrolment. Referring to government policies to improve education standards in the public sector, he promised the local community that if student numbers continued to increase steadily, the Education Department would upgrade both primary schools to middle-school level.

AKAH Senior Engineer Bayar Latif and Field Engineer Sartaj Aziz were also present at both locations.

Source: Original Urdu report on Chitral Express.