Buildings in more than nine in 10 schools in Pakistan delivered under a £107m project funded by the UK’s Department for International Development are not fit for purpose, leaving 115,000 children learning in makeshift classrooms as a new academic year begins.

Internal Dfid documents seen by the FT show that new and renovated facilities, including classrooms and toilets, at 1,277 of the 1,389 schools covered by the UK Aid programme are potentially affected by structural design problems. IMC Worldwide, a UK-based company that specialises in delivering infrastructure projects in developing countries, is the main contractor.

The problems affecting the project, which is focused on the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab, put the school buildings at risk of collapse, especially those in areas prone to earthquakes.

Despite two separate assessments of the project dating as far back as 2016 about the quality of the building work and similar concerns raised by local authorities in Pakistan, Dfid allowed IMC to continue to run the project.

Boys attend a school in the Swat Valley, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa © Farooq Naeem/AFP

The crisis finally came to a head in June when a third safety report commissioned by Dfid found flaws in IMC’s construction methods and designs.

The UK government immediately told local authorities to close all the new facilities at the 793 schools where work has been completed so inspectors could identify which required remedial work. The decision leaves an estimated 115,000 students, who returned to school this week, facing months studying in makeshift accommodation, including tents and verandas.

IMC has said it has identified 261 schools that require immediate attention, while it is conducting a “stringent” analysis of the remaining 1,016 to find out if they require work to make them safe. It estimated the work would take until March next year to complete and that all affected buildings will remain closed as a “precautionary measure”.

Alok Sharma: 'My immediate priority is to ensure this does not happen again and I will be speaking to the senior leadership of IMC in the coming days to discuss this' © Isabel Infantes/AFP

Alok Sharma, the newly appointed international development secretary, said it was “completely unacceptable” that schools built on behalf of the UK government were not constructed to the expected quality and standard and said IMC would be retrofitting all affected classrooms “at no extra cost to the British taxpayer”.

“My immediate priority is to ensure this does not happen again. I have spoken with IMC to make sure they are taking the necessary action and I will personally follow up with them,” he said.

Stephen Twigg, the chair of the House of Commons international development select committee, pledged to investigate the issue as part of a new inquiry into the impact and delivery of aid in Pakistan after he was approached by the FT.

Stephen Twigg: 'The allegation that there are thousands of Dfid-funded classrooms that are both inadequate and fall short of safety standards is doubly alarming' © Chris Ison/PA

“The allegation that there are thousands of Dfid-funded classrooms that are both inadequate and fall short of safety standards is doubly alarming,” he said. “It raises serious concerns about value for taxpayers’ money and, just as importantly, for the education of tens of thousands of children who should have a safe and secure place to learn.”

Dfid said the majority of children can be adequately housed in existing school facilities, but aid workers have raised concerns that these are not appropriate for months of learning.

“This will mean children are sitting outside in high temperatures in overcrowded rooms, or with multiple grades learning together,” a development professional with knowledge of the project said.

There were also calls for an investigation in Pakistan. Sakib Sherani, a former adviser to the finance ministry, called on the government in Islamabad to review how local development agencies operate in the country. “This is much too vital not to be followed with a detailed review,” he said.

The IMC-led project has a troubled history. The company, which operates as Humqadam in Pakistan, was originally contracted in 2014 to build 31,084 classrooms as well as other facilities in more than 10,000 schools, under a £184m contract that was part of a bigger Dfid programme to overhaul education in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab.

But more than four years into the partnership, the project has been scaled back to 5,618 classrooms — just a fifth of the original number — after IMC admitted it had underestimated the costs. IMC said it would deliver the much smaller project for £107m.

The problems with IMC’s work were well documented by engineering experts on three separate occasions. According to the internal correspondence, the warnings started three years ago when Dfid brought in engineering consultants Halcrow. A further report by Cardno raised similar concerns. The two assessments flagged that the classrooms did not comply with local building codes, failed tests for earthquake safety and were generally of poor quality.

At the time, IMC carried out corrective work at 13 sites. An IMC spokesperson told the FT it had worked with Dfid to resolve the issues, which only required minor alterations.

Dfid finally took the decision to suspend the contract with IMC after it received the result of a third assessment of the project by experts from University College London in May. The study identified flaws in IMC’s construction methods and designs. IMC acknowledged the problems potentially affected buildings in the vast majority of schools, including 57 per cent where work had been completed, according to the internal documents.

Although work on new construction is on hold, IMC has started to retrofit unsafe classrooms and organised alternative accommodation for students at its own cost.

IMC said its designs had used “innovative approaches to improve comfort and cost effectiveness” and buildings had been signed off previously by an approved consultant registered by the Pakistan Engineering Council.

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“We believe the buildings in question are safe under normal loading but there may be an issue under extreme seismic loads. We will never take any risks with the safety of children, so if there is any question about it, we will put it right,” IMC told the FT.

Internationally funded infrastructure projects in Pakistan often struggle to get off the ground. Nearly 15 years after the huge Kashmir earthquake devastated large areas of northern Pakistan, killing at least 70,000 people, reconstruction has struggled to gain momentum.

“Northern Pakistan is littered with concrete skeletons of abandoned reconstruction,” said Nadia Naviwala, a fellow at the Wilson Center and a specialist on education in the region. “Donors have really struggled with the task of rebuilding schools.”

A Pakistani government official said that after the 2005 earthquake little had been done to enforce building regulations to make structures more resilient. “In many areas, including projects by development agencies, the thinking processes seem to suggest the earthquake was a hundred years ago, not more recent,” he said.

This article has been updated to reflect the fact that Mr Sharma had contacted the senior leadership of IMC at the time of publication.

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