Daily Times

The United Nations Global Education Monitoring Report, published last year, revealed that Pakistan is 50-plus years behind in its primary and 60-plus years behind in its secondary education targets.

In 2015-16, a mere 2.3 percent was earmarked for education-related expenditure. Pakistan spends only two percent of its GDP on education — in comparison, war-torn Afghanistan allocates four percent, our eastern neighbour India seven percent, and Rwanda, an African country, nine percent of their GDP on education.

In literacy rates, Pakistan trails countries in the region like Iran, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Burma.

Unesco’s Global Education Monitoring (GEM)report, issued in January 2017, calls upon the South Asian governments to take inequalities in education seriously so that they can achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.The report warns that Pakistan is set to miss by more than half a century its target of ensuring that all children receive their primary education. Already, Pakistan has the most absolute number of children out of school anywhere in the world — including 5.6 million out of primary schools, around 5.5 million out of secondary schools, and a staggering 10.4 million adolescents out of upper secondary school.

The report reveals that there is a wide gap between school completion rate and education attainment between the rich and the poor, urban and rural-areas and boys and girls. Poor rural males have a literacy rate of 64 percent, but their female counterparts pale in comparison with only 14 percent.

A number of inequalities and disparities persist in the education sector from medium to syllabus and facilities on campus to qualifications of teachers. Here, we will limit our discussion to gender-based inequalities.

According to Alif Ailaan’s report from June last year, a staggering 75 percent of girls aged between five and 16 years are out of school in Balochistan. The figure for boys in the same age bracket is 65 percent. Girls continue to suffer severe disadvantage and exclusion in the province. The Alif Ailaan findings reveal that only 25 percent females have ever been to school, compared with 60 percent males.

The District Rankings 2016 show that the total number of schools for boys in the country is 96,365, and for girls 57,779, though women’s share in population is higher than men’s.

For these schools, there are 407,795 male teachers and 286,832 female teachers. The percentage of out-of-school boys is 43 percent and that of girls is 52 percent, showing a clear discrimination against girls in the field of education. The dropout rate among boys is 40 percent and among girls 42 percent. The percentage of males who never attended a school is 31 percent, and that of females is as high as 55 percent.

The situation is the worst in Balochistan. The total number of schools for boys in the province is 9,399 and for girls is 3,880. Gender disparity is visible also in the number of teachers. There are 30,594 male teachers in the province and only 15,287 females teachers. Dropout rate among boys is 71 percent and among girls is 73 percent. The ratio of population that has never attended a school is very high among girls — 83 percent. The number for boys is 46 percent.

As far as the issue of gender disparity goes, the second worst affected province is Sindh. The total number of schools for boys is 35,551, and for girls is 10,488. The number of male teachers is 99,493 and females 44,677. The percentage of out-of-school boys is 51 percent and girls is 61 percent. The dropout rate among boys is 49percent and among girls is 50percent. The ratio of males who never attended a school is 31percent, and of that of females is 54percent.

In Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the total number of schools for boys is 3,560, and for girls is 2,451. There 13,033 male teachers and only 6,417 females teachers. The ratio of out-of-school boys is 45 percent, while that of girls is 75 percent. Dropout rate among boys is 67 percent, and amongst girls it is 72 percent.

In Gilgit-Baltistan, the total number of schools for boys is 859, and for girls only 416 — ratio of boys and girls population is almost the same. The number of male teachers is 4,458 but the number of female teachers stands at 2,269. The percentage of out-of-school boys is 46percent and that of girls is 53percent.

In Punjab, the number of male teachers is 162,117 and female teachers 158,947 — though the number of schools for girls is higher than those for boys. The ratio of out-of-school girls is 46 percent and of boys is 42 percent. The total number of children, who never attended school, is 40 percent — with 30percent males and 49percent females.

The report shows a wide gender disparity in schools of KP. There are 17,649 schools for boys and only 10,529 are for girls. These schools have 80,027 teachers for boys, but for girls there are only 43,264 teachers. The dropout rate for girls at primary level is 46percent, and for boys is 25percent.

Against this backdrop, we need to ask ourselves that by discriminating against our women citizens aren’t we creating an environment which is perfect for keeping our coming generations illiterate? By keeping our children away from schools, aren’t we increasing the risk of violence and conflict in our society? Our rulers need not think about these concerns, as poorly educated nation best suits their vested interests, but what about ourselves? Is it about time we start thinking about these questions?

Lastly, one hopes that our future budgets will considerably increase investment in this most important area of our future well-being.

The writer is a social and political activist based in Lahore. He can be reached at salmanali088@gmail.com