Daily Times

Today, we live in the age of information and communication. Constantly improving technology has globalised and connected the world with far-off areas across the planet. It has completely changed the life trends. Developed countries are searching for life on other planets and planning to live on Mars, Venus and the moon. They are developing nanotechnology, which encompasses molecular engineering; it designs and manufactures incredibly small circuits and devices that are built at the molecular level of matter. They are developing a robotics system which is agile, precise, intelligent, and mechanical. In addition, machine learning has augmented automated data analysis and has promoted artificial intelligence and more development is on its way.

The developed countries in the west have achieved this massive progress because they most importantly have focused on education, learning and research work. Therefore, they have stabilised socio-economic, democratic and governance systems. In addition, all other state institutes and departments such as health, education, infrastructure, and social security are well organised.

It is a universal reality that education is a basic human right. Thus, every citizen of the world should be given at least a basic one. According to the article 26 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.” In addition, Pakistan’s constitution’s article 25A states that “the state shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of five to sixteen years in such manner as may be determined by law.”

Despite that, generally Pakistan has remained deprived of quality education. Let’s take the example of Badin. It is a district rich in terms of natural resources and has productive agriculture land. Unfortunately, whatsoever the revenue generated through oil and gas or agriculture, not even one percent of that is spent on the public affairs of district Badin; instead, it goes to the luxuries of some politicians or bureaucrats. This can be observed looking at the fundamental development indicators, such as of education of Badin district.

The district in total has 2991 public schools, of them only 364 schools are for girls. Gender disparity in the education sector in this district can clearly be understood from this fact alone. Women are only considered fit to do household chores, but not to get education. And this happens despite the fact that they work in agriculture fields and construction sectors. Education is the only tool that can empower women to contribute more to the society.

The data proves that boys’ schools far outnumber girls’ schools. This is a situation which nurtures gender inequality

There are 2820 public primary schools in Badin; of them only 355 are for girls. There are 60 secondary schools in the district; of them only 10 schools are for girls. In entire district, there are 10 higher secondary schools and only 3 of them for girls. Moreover, there are 19 elementary schools and girls have only 3 of them. It explicitly shows how gender equality in our society is nowhere on the list of priorities. The data proves that boys’ schools far outnumber those for the girls. In this way, we are creating a society where only male can dominate. In this age of globalisation, we need to understand the importance of female education because their empowerment ultimately leads to the country’s development overall.

Apart from that, missing facilities at the schools is also one of the major challenges. There are 854 schools in the district that do not have proper facilities; for example, 66 percent of the schools in the district do not have drinking water facility and half of the schools do not have toilets facility. In addition, hundreds of schools have no boundary walls, playgrounds, electricity etc.

There are number of well-constructed school buildings but they remain closed for the last two years. The figure is 500; of them 51 schools are of girls. Besides, 774 schools in Badin district do not have shelters. Thus, the students are forced to get education in shelter-less schools. There are 808 schools that have only one room each; in that one room are taught students from class one to five. There are 1705 schools with only one teacher each. How merely one teacher teaches students from classes 1 to 5 in these 1705 schools is beyond comprehension. How alarming is it that more than 50 percent children in the district from age 5 to 16 have never even seen classrooms?

This appalling state of education in Badin is enough for the ruling provincial government to know how ‘seriously’ the problem of education is dealt by the existing administration. The outlook of Badin’s overall education system is quite bleak. In very backward areas, schools are closed because there are no teachers to teach the students even when the buildings are available. In yet other areas, there are no school buildings and the children are compelled to learn under the shadow of trees. At some places, school buildings are converted into Otaq (place for guests). In some schools, livestock and cattle are kept. Moreover, there are hundreds of schools in the district that are not heat and cold resilient.

Schools are meant to create intellectual minds. Instead, our schools create less confident and inferior minds. Schools are supposed to create critical and analytical minds but the ones in our country create illogical and unscientific minds. Schools teach how to behave morally and ethically but looking at the overall moral picture of the country, it seems that our schools are preaching the exact opposite. It is regrettable to say that Badin’s overall education position does not seem promising at all.

It needs untiring efforts of the district education department, provincial education ministry, civil society, educationists, teachers, media and intellectuals to raise strong voice for education. Moreover, social media is one of the best tools for digital campaigning to make our voice heard by the government and relevant departments and organisations. We must utilise all platforms in order to attain this fundamental right of ours.

The writer is a development professional. He may be contacted at murtazatalpur@hotmail.com

Published in Daily Times, May 4^th 2018.