Image by: Alex Stonehill

Ghost Schools

From: Jessica Partnow
Length: 06:45

Primary education is compulsory in Pakistan, and the country has a large public school system. But many of these schools are just marginally functional. Corruption is rampant, teachers play hooky, and some schools exist only on paper. The problems are so widespread that the term "ghost school" has become a household phrase. Jessica Partnow reports from Karachi. Read the full description.

Piece Audio

Playing: Ghost Schools
From: Jessica Partnow

1_titleghostschool_small

Primary education is compulsory in Pakistan, and the country has a large public school system. But many of these schools are just marginally functional. Corruption is rampant, teachers play hooky, and some schools exist only on paper. The problems are so widespread that the term "ghost school" has become a household phrase.

Jessica Partnow reports from Karachi.

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Piece Description

Primary education is compulsory in Pakistan, and the country has a large public school system. But many of these schools are just marginally functional. Corruption is rampant, teachers play hooky, and some schools exist only on paper. The problems are so widespread that the term "ghost school" has become a household phrase.

Jessica Partnow reports from Karachi.

Broadcast History

Produced for the World Vision Report. Aired on KUOW Presents Sept. 17, 2009.

Transcript

SCRIPT (7:39)

The courtyard of the Mirza Adam Khan Government School is filled with rubble.

To the left, one building has been reduced to a single wall. The green chalkboard that was once at the front of the class is now exposed to the hot sun and choking air of Lyari, the most densely populated section of Karachi.

To the right, a half-built cement structure shades a sleeping herd of goats. At the back of the compound a shocking scene reveals utter neglect.

JESSICA: (standup) This classroom is completely empty of furniture. There’s just piles of garbage all over the floor, there’s cigarette butts, there’s plastic bottles, there’s cement blocks, there’s old dirty clothes.

On paper, I’m standing in a perfectly functional Karachi public school. Actually several public schools. Inside this one compound, I should be surrounded by seven elementary and middle schools with a thousand...
Read the full transcript

Intro and Outro

INTRO:

Five million children in Pakistan don’t attend school. Primary education is compulsory, and the country has a large public school system. But many of these schools exist only on paper, suffer from chronic teacher absenteeism, or have been so crippled by corruption that they are just marginally functional.

The term ‘ghost school’ has become a household phrase. Jessica Partnow sent us this report on one of Karachi’s ghost schools.

OUTRO:

This story was produced for the World Vision Report. Funding was provided by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.