Balochistan Point Voice of Nation
By: Zeeshan Nasir
Balochistan is counted to be one of the most lagged behind provinces of Pakistan in terms of Education, healthcare, human rights. The state of education in Balochistan has always been a gamble between our politicians, with low literacy rates and a lack of access to schools.
According to reports by the Provincial Education Commission that there are just 12,500 primary, secondary and high schools in the province that encompasses over 22,000 human settlements and where up to half the population has no access to schools.
Compounding the outcome is the fact that of those 12,500 schools, 7,000 are those which comprise of little more than a single room with a single teacher. Currently, there are 66 per cent of the province’s children school-aged population approximately some 1.8 million children are out of school. There are some schools built in the province but they lack basic facilities, security. Despite improvements in government school facilities, a lot remains to be accomplished. And 62 per cent of students attend government schools, while only 20 percent of all government schools provide higher education. In such a scenario, private schools bridge the gap left by a shortage of government schools, but this is for sure, that the people who even don’t have one-time meal to eat, can they afford private schools, instead of the pursuit of a living?
While the number of out of children is also decreased by 1 million. However, there are children between the ages of 15 to 16 who are out of schools and some 18 aged children haven’t even seen the doors of the classrooms.
On their thorny ways, these children often face deep-rooted inequalities and disparities due to poverty,gender inequalityq and child labour as well as lack of school facilities and learning and teaching materials.Balochistan ranks lowest in education, as none of the districts in the province lies in the highest quality of district education rankings. Including 32 districts in Balochistan, 23 districts have an education score of less than 50%. Five teachers for five students at girls’ school.
There is no denying the fact that most of the corrupt politicians and stakeholders’ children are witnessed to be reading abroad and passing awesome lives and according to the present constitution of 1973, every individuals has been granted the right to be happy and get access to a quality education. But what we can see now is changed everything, whether they are the greedy and corrupt politicians or a common teacher.
One of the solutions can be the amounts and funding taken by the politicians corruptly. They should invest all these on the governmental schools so that their children should also read and this can too have good affects for those who cannot afford.
If this issue isn’t addressed with urgency, these children will add to the existing pool of youth and eventually adults will be illiterate in the future exacerbating the vicious cycle of poverty. Hence, immediate investment in children who are falling behind, with funds, commitments and innovation is the need of the hour.
In fact, the circumstances of the education in the province may be worse than these statistics or reports show. while in a province where the literacy rate is witnessed the lowest amongst others, but education related problems still remain unchecked.
Undoubtedly, without education democracy cannot flourish and Pakistan cannot come at par with the developed ones. It is not the one and only responsibility of the government to take every kid to school. This is the responsibility of every Pakistani to urge parents to get their children enrolled in schools. While something unique should be done to enlightened their minds.
This is evident, that now is the time to address the issues to a quality and access to education.
The writer is the regular contributor to The Balochistan Point.
Published in The Balochistan Point on December 1, 2018
