The education recovery work in Pakistan's quake-hit areas has made much progress, but it is still faced with various challenges from restricted movement due to road ruggedness and destabilization of mountain slopes, to strengthening capacity of qualified teachers, a UN official has said.

"UNICEF has supported the re-opening of 2,800 schools through distribution of over 5,800 tents to enable around 250,000 children to come back to school," said Nina Hjellegjerde, Project Officer Education of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir in a recent interview with Xinhua.

"This was our initial emergency response. Parallel to this, we are building 500 permanent schools over three years (by end of 2009) in the earthquake affected areas."

UNICEF continues to play a role in relief and recovery activities, which started soon after an earthquake, measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale, struck Pakistan-controlled Kashmir and Pakistan's North West Frontier Province on Oct. 8, 2005, leaving at least 70,000 people dead and over 3.3 million homeless.

In a statement, UNICEF said it has brought some 126,385 boys and 114,217 girls back to school by providing basic school materials including learning and recreational kits and textbooks, and is training some 9,900 teachers in psychosocial support and basic classroom management.

"Challenges have been quite varied," said Nina, based in the headquarters of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, Muzaffarabad, one of the worst-hit districts during the major earthquake, "from snow, monsoon, weather that leads to restricted movement due to landslides and blocked, dangerous roads."

"Also, since most of the schools collapsed, it has been a huge task, both technically and logistically to ensure that the children have an appropriate shelter for learning throughout the winter and summer," she said.

As a result of the deadly earthquake and extensive destabilization of mountain slopes, the terrain in the quake- affected areas is a significant challenge for the people, the government and the response community alike in the coming months, especially the winter, the UN Resident Coordinator Office in Pakistan has said recently in a statement.

Nina said that the re-constructing of the schools in quake- stricken region will realistically take years, especially in light of the quality of these buildings needs to be very good, in appropriate places and earth quake secure.

Before coming to Muzaffarabad in January 2006, Nina was with an UNICEF designation in South Sudan. She told Xinhua that the situation and challenges in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir are very different from those in South Sudan. "Here we are fortunate enough that communities and parents prioritize education for their children, and bring them to school," she said.

"The main challenge (here) lies in the quality of the learning taking place," Nina told Xinhua, "hence one of the priorities is the need to strengthen the capacity of the teachers, train them in new child centered teaching methodologies, lesson planning and classroom management - specially in light of the challenging environment of having to do multi-grade teaching."

"I personally feel very lucky to be able to work with children, it is a very rewarding job and I really enjoy working in Pakistan, " added Nina, a Norwegian lady in her twenties.

(Xinhua News Agency October 5, 2006)