Punjab Minister for School Education, Rana Sikandar Hayat, has revealed that around 3,000 schools have been destroyed in recent floods, disrupting the education of thousands of students across the province.
Speaking during a meeting with UNICEF’s Representative to Pakistan, Pernille Ironside, Hayat said the education department was already struggling with limited facilities, and the floods had now created an even greater challenge. Many of the affected schools remain submerged, forcing authorities to take urgent steps to keep education running.
We are now faced with the enormous task of rehabilitating these schools,” he said. To accommodate displaced students, the government has introduced three shifts in school operations, while private buildings will be rented and tent schools will be set up in flood-hit areas. Rehabilitation efforts are expected to take at least three months.
The minister further announced that students from flood-affected areas would be exempted from semester fees and provided with scholarships to ease their financial burden. Meanwhile, despite official claims that floodwaters are receding in parts of Punjab, breaches at the Noraja Bhutta embankment on the Sutlej River have worsened the situation in several districts, including Multan, Lodhran, and Bahawalpur. Dozens of villages, among them Noraja Bhutta, Basti Lang, Kotla Chakar, Bahadurpur, and Mouza Kanu, remain under 8 to 10 feet of stagnant water.
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