This spring, 45 schools move from tents to earthquake-resistant wood-and-tin classrooms and 194 receive new school furniture

This boys' middle school in Bees Bagla village will shift into temporary timber-and-tin classrooms until permanent buildings are rebuilt. Three students and the headmaster of this school were killed in the earthquake. The rubble of the destroyed building lies in the foreground.

"These classrooms are very well constructed. Our children will be safe there."

-- Ali Akbar Khan, a village elder from Bees Bagla, who lost his 12-year-old grandson Taimur in the quake

Schools took a particularly hard beating when a 7.6 magnitude earthquake struck northern Pakistan the morning of Oct. 8. In Bagh District, at least 1,460 school children were killed when their classrooms collapsed around them and tens of thousands suffered physical and emotional trauma from their near escapes. When schools reopened, classes moved into tents away from the rubble, although half-destroyed buildings continued to pose a safety hazard to passers-by. Teachers described students' fear at remaining indoors and their own difficulty in teaching different age groups inside a single tent.

To make school sites safe again and to meet community demand for temporary classrooms until buildings can be rebuilt, USAID funded a Bagh District program to pay villagers to sort rubble onsite and to build earthquake-resistant classrooms out of wood and corrugated iron sheets. A modular design allows different classroom sizes to be quickly put together according to the school's needs. USAID partner GOAL is providing 60 such classrooms to 45 schools, at a cost of $3,250 for a standard 32' by 16' unit, building upon expertise and resources from previ-ous training and cash-for-work programs. Master carpenters, who each received $1,000 in tools under a USAID scheme to replace tools lost in the quake, are paid 600 rupees ($10) a day to construct transitional classrooms. These craftsmen have already completed a separate four-day USAID workshop in earthquake-resistant design, and in turn train others to build the structures.

While carpenters build, local residents receive tools, safety gear and 200 rupees ($3.33) a day each to tear down severely damaged school structures and to sort out unsafe elements from the rubble. The program also provides 194 government schools in Bagh District with desks, chairs and blackboards. "Schools are very important to us, even more so than homes," said Mohammed Saleem, a master carpenters who built structures for a Bees Bagla middle school. "A whole generation will be destroyed if we don't restore our schools." Shakil Ahmed, a science teacher, was grateful he would once again teach different grades in separate spaces. This $240,000 USAID program enables students to safely return to class after the end of winter vacation, brings their school routine one step closer to normalcy and provides employment for local residents.