Daily Times

A recently campaign by Ali Ailan is excellently highlighting the plight of the country’s education system. Education needs to be our priority as we move forward. Without this, our youngsters will have no way to display their talent in front of the world.

This country has been struggling with education for a long time now. There are many different reasons for the current state of affairs, but I think the biggest culprits are the concerned authorities.

Sindh province suffered a lot in the field of education during the last five years as compared to other provinces in the country. Despite having plenty of educational institutions, competent educationists, as well as a good number of knowledge seekers, Sindh’s education system is still failing.

Almost every sector in the province has been politicised, and the education sector is no different. If you travel along Sindh’s coast, you will find districts with schools that are in shambles. Almost every government school building looks like a ruin due to poor infrastructure, unavailability of safe drinking water, lack of electricity, and absence of boundary walls.

With the 2018 General Elections around the corner, we have to ensure that education is a priority for our leaders. Every politicians needs to be asked about their education agenda when they visit our villages and towns

Badin district, with a population of 1.805 million, lies in the east of Karachi. NA-230 is the national constituency of Badin, which is home to a total of 1872 schools — 1,598 schools for boys and only 274 for girls. Out of these, 1772 schools are primary, 42 middle, 17 elementary, 31 secondary and four higher secondary level schools.

The total number of students enrolled in 1872 schools are 112,358, among whom 71,320 are boys while 41,036 are girls. For the purpose to meet the academic needs of the students, the government has recruited 4,018 teachers in all of these schools.

So despite the availability of teachers, why the education sector is still not progressing? The most probable reason could be the unavailability of required facilities.

In this constituency, there are 1,245 schools in total; drinking water is not available, 885 schools do not have toilets for both students and teachers, 1,409 schools do not have electricity facility, while 1,027 schools do not have boundary walls.

From the above-cited statistics, one can easily assess the education standard of local students, whom poor parents send to schools with high hopes.

We lag far behind in the field of science and technology, and in such sort of challenging circumstances we can never expect to make our future generations contestable. Many government schools of this region have science and computer labs available but experiment-related material is not nowhere to be found.

This is not a one-offcase; instead,it isa dilemma for the entire country — the reason why we are lagging far behind in this world.

With the 2018 General Elections around the corner, we have to ensure that education is a priority for our leaders. Every politicians needs to be asked about their education agenda when they visit our villages and towns.

This is the right time to be one voice and demand our right to quality education.

The writer is a freelance contributor based in Badin, Sindh and can be reached at abbaskhaskheli110@gmail.com

Published in Daily Times, June 9^th 2018.