Girls education: Way long backward
By: Sana Samad,
In Balochistan, girls do not have rights of education, healthcare or any space in politicians, cultural, economic or social fields. Instead of that women are regularly facing discrimination, assault and murder in the name of honor killing. Due to this, Balochistan is the most backward province and is recorded top ranking in Pakistan in terms of maternal mortality, unemployment and female illiteracy and gender disparities. The condition of women is getting more deteriorated in rural areas of Balochistan where the literacy rate of women is just 2 percent which is too much less as compare to 26 percent for the province as whole. How a province can move toward prosperity with having 98 percent of female’s illiteracy rate?
The available statistic of education in Balochistan portray a bleak picture. Mostly the education is neglected in rural areas, and boys are getting opportunities, but girl quit their education after passing primary education as due to lack of funds and no high schools are available where they can read and gain knowledge. Though the literacy rate of women is growing in Pakistan, and great improvement has seen in last few years, but the literacy rate among rural women in Balochistan is decreasing day by day. It is shocking to know that the literacy rate of rural female of Balochistan is less than 2 percent. The girls are enrolled in different works including cooking food, cleaning the houses, child bearing and rearing and whole other domestic support required by the husband and other family members. The females give more favor to these household work and never bother themselves to attend schools. The second reason is lack of awareness among females about the importance of education.
It is estimated that 90 percent of the girls are deprived from schooling. Most neglected parts are Buleda, Kharan, Bolan and Marri and Bugti tribal areas. These villages are deprived from primary schools. In other places primary schools are present, but the problem is that no presence of high schools for getting higher education. Even in some places of Quetta, no primary schools are present. The more saddening news is that these out-of-school children are being enrolled in bad activities which is totally devastated their career as mostly the girls are being used for illegal activities to earn money.
It is unfortunate that due to the threats of the militant groups the parents fear to send their children into schools. A national daily has reported that the dropout rate is an appalling 70 percent, in spite of having education in schools and colleges. That is called the biggest reason of lowest female literacy rate in Balochistan. Leave the ignorance of education in the province, the women are continuously suffering from other threats and dying on daily basis. This emphasis that no one is interested to support Baloch females.
In Balochistan 73 years of history, the government has not done any remarkable work for educating the both sexes. The schools are suffering from lack of fund as schools are suffering from lack of buildings, electricity and lack of drinking water. As for as non-government organizations (NGOs) are concerned, they highly claim to be working for women rights to education. Unfortunately, they are just focusing mainly in Quetta, they hardly go out of the city to look at women’s pitiable education in rural areas. The NGOs is receiving a huge amount of fund and salaries for their work, but they are totally wasting money and time. They should visit entire Balochistan and ensure that women has rights of education and they are free to seek knowledge.
The main responsibility of the destruction of small girls is only government. Questions are arising that it is not tough for government to establish schools in rural areas then why is government unwilling to build schools? Why government has nneglected the education of rural areas of Balochistan? The small children want to get education, want to gain knowledge, but what to do without having schools. If in some places schools are available then there is lack of necessary funds, absence of a well-defined education policies, shortage of water, acute shortage of teaching staff and poverty are the factors which contribute to the backwardness of rural areas. Today Balochistan is the most backward province in regard of education. If nothing would be done, students will gain nothing, and Balochistan would never be able to succeed in education sector.
Published in Makran times.
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