Daily Times

Balochistan is a province with few concerned to the education which results the province to be the most illiterate location in the entire world. Comparing to the other provinces in Pakistan, Balochistan possess the least universities to promote higher education within the territory: a total number of 8 universities are functioning in the overall province while in KPK the number of universities is 41; Sindh got 56, Punjab with the top marks owns 68, Azad Jammu and Kashmir seven and Gilgit Baltistan contains two universities in its name. With a growing population, Balochistan requires due attention from the provincial and federal governments but yet by now we are being eyed from the same angle as previously. Having a thick population of 12,344,408 with a large number of population uncensored, we need a new glance.

Each year thousands of students clear their intermediate and bachelor in approximately 77 colleges all across the province. Placing them in solely 8 universities create ups and downs for the Administrations to run the system smoothly. Consequently, young students are dropped out during the semesters or ere the admissions; then gets birth the out of education young objects in the region with most of them either joining a garage or their ancestral fields as profession with the degrees of intermediate and bachelor.

Fortunately, Balochistan Cabinet has recently passed a bill of construction of University of Gwadar with 500 acre land and 5 billion rupees pledged by the federal government. The proposal is supposed to be granted in Balochistan Assembly in their upcoming session. It would be something to look forward in the upcoming year if it is not, as in other number of occasions, an unfulfilled promise. There are required even more Universities in the province so as to give more to the education of the province which ultimately boosts up the literacy rate of the unit and state along with aiding much in the development of Pakistan’s economy in the real sense if notices.

Balochistan Cabinet has recently passed a bill of construction of University of Gwadar with 500 acre land and 5 billion rupees pledged by the federal government. The proposal is supposed to be granted in Balochistan Assembly in their upcoming session. It would be something to look forward in the upcoming year if it is not, as in other number of occasions, an unfulfilled promise

Besides this, with the presence of 32 districts and 3 on doubts to be given the status of districts in near future divided into 6 divisions, there ought to be a university per district. Each district owns a population of more than 1 and half lacs in least while some others have passed the number of 30 lacs as the local population. From these, if we take the 3rd part as students of colleges or Universities, the number looks very high which ends up with students quitting the efforts in providing an educated object to the society but a labour underaged. Yet our government owe the attention to outer projects and unnecessary activities rather than promoting education.

Coincidentally, Balochistan is contributing the most in the national economy with the natural resources like Gold and mine, copper, gas and many more, government is spending the least in the development of the province. Even, China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is the main project of Pakistan with China is undergoing all because of the location of Balochistan. Having so much paid to the state, government is not doing half for the province.

Hence, government of Pakistan is supposed to have sits with Balochistan government and plan for disparate revolutions for the prosperity of the province for, Pakistan’s progression is all depended in the successions of its units as a whole. History witnesses no nation’s success separately and lonely but with the objects present in it. Similarly, Universities must be constructed in different locations of Balochistan where a maximum number of students must be enrolled in order to have a control over its destruction in education. I, as a member of Baloch society, strongly feel the dire need of more universities built.

The writer is a teacher and a free columnist based in Turbat. He can be reached at alijanmaqsood17@gmail.com

Published in Daily Times, November 1^st 2018.